Solar for All: Renewable Energy at the Base of the Pyramid

Abstract

This document presents the work of the University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources and Environment, 2013‐2014 Masters Project team comprised of Wan‐Ning Chen, Annelise Lemes, Aditi Moorthy, Lukas Strickland, and Yicong Zhu. Our project was presented to the University on April 11, 2014 in the “Sustainable Enterprise” category. The project client was the Solar Electric Light Fund, an international non‐profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on the sustainable development of electrification in the developing world through the construction of renewable energy systems. Additionally, the team collaborated closely with many other organizations, the most relevant of which were Ashoka, Innovators for the Public, an international social entrepreneurship network, and Micama Soley, a Haiti‐based for‐profit enterprise focusing on developing renewable energy solutions for rural Haitians. Broadly, the initial goal of our project was to assist an international organization design and implement a renewable energy project that would bring electricity to rural inhabitants in the developing world. Although the Solar Electric Light Fund was not our original client, because of the alignment of our goals with theirs, all parties agreed that a partnership between our team and that organization would make for a stronger project. After initiating the partnership with the Solar Electric Light Fund, the first stage of our project consisted of extensive primary and secondary research that gave us intimate familiarity with the global energy access challenge, the solar lantern industry, and, more specifically, with Haiti. Our client facilitated a trip to Haiti during which team members conducted a socioeconomic survey that highlighted the extent of the energy needs in one of the world’s poorest countries. It also placed that need in the broader context of other development challenges, including education, sanitation, healthcare, nutrition, and others. The second, more substantive stage of our project consisted of applying the learnings from the research phase to help our client lay the foundation for a grant project focused on building a self‐sustaining lantern distribution network on Haiti’s particularly impoverished Central Plateau. With the blessing of the Solar Electric Light Fund, the Masters Team partnered with local organizations in Haiti, and helped our client build a business plan and partnership network that should allow them to satisfy the terms of their grant project while improving the lives of thousands of rural Haitians. This document presents all phases of our work in four chapters: Chapter I provides an overview of our primary and secondary research of the global energy access challenge and the solar lantern industry; Chapter II outlines the project building work that the team undertook in the latter half of the project; Chapter III critically analyzes the project design that resulted from stage two of the project; and Chapter IV provides an overview of the risks that the team perceives for successful project implementation and our recommendations for overcoming them.