Electricity in Africa: The dark continent

Few Africans in rural areas have access to electricity. Connecting them to national grids will be slow and expensive. Yet Lilliputian windmills, water mills, solar panels and biomass furnaces could have a big collective impact. The cost of lighting a shack takes 10% of income in the poorest households and the kerosene lamps are highly polluting. In response, the World Bank has rolled out “Lighting Africa”, an ambitious effort to get 250m of the poorest Africans on clean-energy lighting by 2030....

Aggreko, a company based in Scotland, is the world's biggest supplier of temporary electricity in the shape of back-up generators. It meets up to 50% of Uganda's power needs, and 10% of those of Kenya and Tanzania....

Other remedies for Africa's power shortages are more familiar but just as urgent: more efficient appliances, such as LED lighting

Source: Economist

What can you do? Give the gift of light.