Developing World Solar – Enabling energy self reliance through education

Approximately two billion people, about 30% of the world population who have no access to electricity, rely on fuel-based lighting, such as kerosene  lanterns and candles. This is health wise unsafe, expensive, and provides for very inefficient lighting. Limited by the amount of sunlight during the day makes it very difficult to perform tasks efficiently in the evening and night time hours. The main problem is that these tasks include homework or studies by children, and without proper lighting, reading books or chalkboards is next to impossible. This presents a huge barrier to education and economic development, not to mention literacy improvement. Efficient LED lighting can therefore impact the well being of people who cannot perform efficiently after the sun has set.

The major push to change to LED lighting is the widespread use of dangerous, expensive fuels such as kerosene. Kerosene is a very expensive fuel for people living in poverty. In places such as rural Africa, purchasing kerosene to power a small household can represent more than 4% of their entire monthly  income. Add to that the cost of traveling tens of kilometers just to purchase the fuel needed to power their kerosene lights.The amount of light given off by LED’s can produce more than 200 times the light given off by a kerosene lantern.

Making the change to solar powered LED lighting systems not only presents a more cost effective, efficient alternative, but also a much safer one. There is a huge risk of fire when using kerosene lighting.  According to the World Health Organization, indoor air pollution from kerosene and other burned fuels used for indoor lighting and cooking is the cause of more than 1.5 million deaths to date.

On the right are some of the prototypes we have evaluated. Please feel free to use them in your own projects. The circuit diagrams are taken directly from the chip manufacturers datasheets.

If you discover any others that may be of interest please send us an email through our contact page.