Responsible off-gridding

Today grid connected artificial lighting accounts for about 19% of worldwide electricity use and produces vast accompanying CO2 emissions. We still however occupy a world where about 295 million households live without grid-connected electricity. This equates to about 1.6 billion people worldwide or just under a quarter of the world’s population.1

In the majority of the ‘Western’ world we are all now seeking to try and reduce our energy use and cut CO2 emissions as we seek to comply with the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol and indigenous Government policy at the same time as trying to reduce our energy costs.

Fossil fuel energy and electricity is environmentally and financially expensive for all of us let alone for those in less developed countries. In such countries the installation of power stations and grid infrastructure is often prohibitively expensive and socially and environmentally unsustainable since it is not possible for the majority population to afford electricity generated in this way.

In recent years many NGO (non-governmental organisations) have worked in some of the world’s poorest countries to try and provide off-grid supplies of electricity using renewable energy technologies such as photovoltaic panels etc. Projects often favoured for off-grid supply electricity have been schools and community and medical centres with money frequently being supplied by donations from richer countries, organisations or individuals.

Still more recently, through a better developed sense of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and an improved understanding of our global economy and issues that we are facing in relation to fossil fuel supply and climate change, many large companies are starting to implement schemes that try and make a difference to the quality of life of poorer people around the world through the use of renewable energy technology supply. One such scheme that is currently being implemented in appropriate locations is OSRAM’s Off Grid project.

The Off Grid project is run in conjunction with Nokia. It enables households without grid electricity supply to operate electrical appliances such as lamps, cell phones and radios. It also offers people in poor regions a chance to engage in self-help schemes through the provision of affordable power for small businesses.

The project has been piloted around Lake Victoria in Kenya and Uganda where about 30 million people live without grid electricity. The project here is currently helping to provide many householders and fisherman with an affordable and clean supply of power.

Off Grid works through the establishment of ‘O-HUBs’ which are set up to hire out electrical equipment such as lighting with batteries powered using solar power from photovoltaic cells. Deposits for batteries and equipment can be provided through micro-financing schemes and used to procure products. Equipment such as ‘blown’ light bulbs are returned to the hub when finished for recharging or recycling. Efficient lamps sources such as compact fluorescent or LEDs are used for lighting equipment to maximise battery power potential.

A main focus of the project is that the ‘clean powered’ batteries are a cheaper, less polluting and healthier supply of power than provided by kerosene which is more conventionally used as a fuel to provide light and electricity in such areas around the globe. It is good to replace kerosene lamps since they are very inefficient, produce high levels of CO2 and other harmful pollutants which are directly related to the cause of disease. They are responsible for the emission of around 67 million tonnes of CO2 each year in Africa alone.

This project is one of many emerging inspirational CSR projects which really look to be having a positive impact in developing countries, but is there scope for similar action in the developed world?

Whilst it may not be possible or desirable to operate exactly the same sort of scheme in the UK or other developed countries, it may be appropriate to adapt this kind of mechanism to enable manufacturing/supply companies to provide for the fast environmental upgrade of obsolete lighting and electrical equipment in schools or hospitals. In such as situations, inefficient lighting or electrical equipment could be replaced with newer more efficient equipment on a rental basis with a contract working towards the supplier providing a continual increase in efficiency and decrease in energy and CO2 emissions from equipment over time.

off-grid@osram.com
www.osram.com

1 Source: Global Environment Facility (GEF) Document of International Finance Corporation, Lighting the bottom of the pyramid, March 2006