Interview with Farzana Rahman Senior Vice-President (Investment), Renewable Energy, IDCOL Location: Bangladesh “The amount of solar home systems we have installed – 4 million – speaks for itself” Around 12% of Bangladeshis, or 18 million people, currently use solar home systems. Solar panels sit on top of rural homes with corrugated tin roofs, connected to …
Interview with Jodie Wu CEO & Founder at Global Cycle Solutions “New products need to be used and experienced and taught” When Jodie Wu was still an engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she invented a simple device that let farmers use a bicycle to shell corn. The mechanism allowed rural farmers to …
Interview with Vinay Jaju Co-founder and COO at ONergy, Head at Switch ON “Energy is not the end. It’s just the means to the end”. Vinay Jaju’s interest in environmentalism first got serious while he was working in Australia and got involved with local forest conservation efforts. When he returned to India in 2008, he …
ONergy: India can’t rely on coal – it must go renewable Read More »
Interview with Vijay Bhaskar Country Director, Mlinda Location: India “We pitched our tariff as an alternative to fossil fuels, and they’re willing to pay our tariff and make sure they’re consuming responsibly”. Mlinda’s first project to bring renewable energy to the Sunderbans, in West Bengal, didn’t go as well as hoped. The organisation wanted to …
Mlinda’s pico-grids in India: Powering productive uses at the right price Read More »
Interview with Salinee Hurley Tavaranan, CEO & Founder, SunSawang Formerly Director at Border Green Energy Team “We don’t do solar for free anymore. We started charging for it and now it’s working”. Salinee Tavaranan is trained as a solar engineer. But she’s learned the policy and finance side of the business as well, after more than 10 …
Trust, training essential for off-grid energy start ups Read More »
Simon Bransfield-Garth, Chief Executive Officer Azuri Technologies Location: Pan-Africa “Go where nobody else has got to yet.” Simon Bransfield-Garth is on the cutting edge of the solar pay-as-you-go market for rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Founder of Azuri Technologies, Bransfield-Garth is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for technology. He has been named a World …
Azuri’s CEO anticipates continued growth in Africa, PAYG agriculture Read More »