ENERGY

Fuel and power are needed for cooking, heating, lighting, communication, and income generation. More than 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity; and 2.4 billion people lack access to modern fuels for cooking and heating, relying instead on wood, dung, and crop residue. Increasing the availability of renewable energy is primary to reducing poverty in the developing world.

Ideas range from low-cost, energy efficient, simple technologies are helping to connect remote and underserved ”to the grid.” Rather than large, expensive public infrastructure projects, smaller innovations with broad applications are allowing people to harness energy off the power grid. University students are teaming with local communities, and local enterprises are partnering with rural banks to provide solar lighting which enables teaching, reading, and income-generating activities after dark. An easily installed virtual utility combines street lighting for safety with a Wi-Fi mesh network for communication and information. Solar dishes built from bicycle parts and vanity mirrors power an informal kitchen, reducing the cost of cooking and supplying a renewed sense of community for the displaced rural migrants who use it.

Up to two million people a year, primarily children, die from inhaling cooking-fire smoke. Clean cooking fuels and efficient portable stoves can reduce indoor and urban air pollution, potentially saving millions of lives. In addition, they spare women and children the chore of collecting wood—an estimated fifty billion hours are spent collecting firewood around the world each year—freeing them up to attend school and engage in income-generating activities.