Leapfrogging the grid proves profitable

First cell phones, now electricity. The companies Enel Green Power and Powerhive have partnered in a privately funded venture to build $12 million in solar-powered mini-electric grids for 100 villages in Kenya. The venture will bring electricity to about 90,000 people.

TRENDPOST: Decentralized power systems are allowing undeveloped areas, especially in the Third World, to leapfrog the stage of industrialization that brought mammoth power generators – with their exhaust, smell and health risks – to developed countries. Increasingly, for-profit initiatives like this one, as well as nonprofits such as the Solar Electric Light Fund, are enabling remote areas to realize the countless benefits of electricity while allowing them to bypass the detriments of centralized power.

Ben Daviss