nprglobalhealth:

How To Get Electricity To People Living Off The Grid? Skip The Grid And Go Straight To Solar

People talk about a flash of inspiration. But Xavier Helgesen’s eureka moment came in the dark.

A few years ago, the American entrepreneur was traveling through Malawi to meet with clients for his book-selling company, Better World Books. He stopped in Monkey Bay, a town of about 30,000 people, to spend the night. What made this place unforgettable, he says, was that it was “100 percent off-grid.”

The streets were pitch black. People carried kerosene lamps to walk around at night. When a family invited him to dinner, they all huddled under one dim light. “It was amazing,” he says, “to see that was how everyone lived.”

And that’s when Helgesen, 38, who was just starting to learn about solar energy, had his bright idea: “If anybody needed solar power,” he says, “it was the people living off the electricity grid.”

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