Small scale energy revolution in India’s slums – from Australia solar company

Australian solar company Pollinate Energy brings light to slums of India ABC Foreign Correspondent By South Asia correspondent Stephanie March 26 May 15 With indoor air pollution from kerosene lamps and stoves the second largest cause of death in India, one company, founded by Australians, has come up with a solution to the problem.

Every night in the sprawling shanty towns of the country of 1.2 billion people, the air fills with dense, black smoke.

“We used to get oil from the market and pour it into the lamp and light it; the house used to get full of soot and dirt,” said Abdul, a slum-dweller in Bangalore who lives in a hut made of wooden board and tarpaulin.

That was until Abdul bought a portable solar light from a company called Pollinate Energy, founded by five young Australians.

AUDIO: Listen to Stephanie’s report (AM)

“After we got this solar lamp a lot of things improved,” Abdul said. “Now we don’t worry that there will be a fire.”

There are 400 million people in India who do not have access to electricity. Many of them live in the thousands of slums found in the country’s cities.

“They’re people who’ve come from rural places to the city to find work, usually in construction sites or as rag pickers, and to make a life for themselves,” Pollinate Energy co-founder Kat Kimmorley said.

“They are sort of like the modern day pharaoh slaves building this next new empire that we all … take for granted that is just coming up before our eyes and yet [is] completely ignored and sort of invisible to the state here.”

Pollinate Energy employs locals to go tent to tent to sell the solar lights.

The lights cost about $30 each — a lot of money for people who earn a few dollars a day. The company allows customers to pay in instalments.

“For most of the people we work with in these urban slums, when we provide a solar light, every time I sell it I think this is the same type of investment as for a plasma screen TV in Australia,” Ms Kimmorley said.

More mobile phones than toilets in India

The lights are popular — the company has sold more than 7,000, and is expanding to two more Indian cities. And that is partly because they double as a phone charger.

“We discovered that the customers would pay double what they would pay for a solar light for a solar-powered phone charger,” Ms Kimmorley said.

“So it is just testament to the fact that it is not just what we think would improve peoples’ lives but also what keeping up with the Joneses means in an urban slum. It’s having a mobile phone and being able to charge that mobile phone,” she said.

The uptake of mobile phones in India has been huge — there are more mobile phones than there are toilets.

The team at Pollinate believes solar lights can follow the same path………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-26/solar-energy-brings-light-to-slums-of-india/6495912