28 December 2017: Energy access in Africa is close to my heart. Bringing clean, renewable power to people instead of building coal-fired power stations is absolutely essential if we are going to tackle climate change.<\/p>\n
Despite great progress in recent years, still every night too much of Africa remains in darkness. But this is about so much more than simply having a source of light. Lack of power inhibits millions of small businesses and budding entrepreneurs in Africa, starving them of the ability to manufacture, even power a laptop.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s certainly no lack of solutions. For instance, my good friend Strive Masiyiwa launched Econet Solar in Zimbabwe to bring solar lamps to villagers who could pay via their smartphones.<\/p>\n
One bigger entrepreneurial energy solution that has so far under delivered on the promise of bringing energy to all has been mini-grid systems. Mini-grids are sets of electricity generators and possibly energy storage systems interconnected to a distribution network that supplies electricity to a group of customers. They can be charged using solar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Image from Getty Images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n