Let There Be Light

Mumbai, India -- Ironically, in places like Europe and the U.S., where it's relatively dark and cold, people are talking about warming. In India, where it's significantly warmer and brighter, the concern is lack of light.

It's hard to convey just how profoundly this matters. India has 400 million people with no electricity and, hence, effectively, with no artificial light. That's about a third of the total lightless inhabitants on the planet. For decades a measure of national progress was the reduction in that number -- and the pathway to that progress was to build central power plants (mostly powered by coal), string copper wire to villages, and then run that electricity through filaments in incandescent bulbs. But only a trivial fraction of the energy in the coal turned into light, and much of the copper wire was stolen (along with a good chunk of the electricity).

There's now a better way. Solar panels, small batteries, and LED lighting make it possible to do away with the whole grid and light households, minimally, for costs that seem to average about $100 a family today.

Even in big cities, there's a role for such distributed power. Mumbai is moving towards solar-powered streetlights in its slums. They cost more but maintenance is far lower and power costs are zero -- which matters for a city that spends $20 million a year on electricity for streetlights alone. Mumbai plans to install enough solar streetlights to cut that bill by 30 percent -- and these lights will mostly be installed in slums where, previously, nighttime meant dark.

I first encountered this trend eighteen months ago, when I blogged  about the village of Mohri, a very poor, shepherds' community that had been electrified with solar cells and two LED lights in every household. My blog was noticed by a journalist for the Times of India, who went to Mohri to tell the full story. It's worth reading.

Not only did Mohri lack light before Aar-em Electronics adopted it and installed lighting, but villagers had to haul kerosene up the steep slopes to their village (a seven- to eight-hour trip) to obtain even the expensive and polluting power source they enjoyed. And the village has been transformed by light.

This idea is catching on. Last week in Mumbai, the Indian advertising industry gathered to launch its -- and I suspect the world's -- biggest-ever public-service advertising campaign, in support of an initiative launched by The Energy Research Institute (TERI) in New Delhi, headed by the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri. This ad campaign is designed to raise awareness and support (and money) for TERI's Light a Billion Lives campaign. The campaign's goal is to bring light -- in the form of a solar lantern -- to a billion of the world's lightless people. Most of India's biggest media leaders were at the event to bless it and commit to help support the campaign.

This is wonderful.

But I ran the numbers. Solar lanterns cost about $40. A modest, two-light fixed solar system for a village home costs about $100. If we did this at scale the costs would come down -- probably way down.

But let's pretend they don't. The 400 million inhabitants of Indian without light live in 67 million homes. So with $6.7 billion we could light every home in India that is dark tonight. It's not a lot of money. But the numbers get better.

At the same event where Pachauri launched the Billion Lives campaign, Farooq Abdullah, who is the minister in charge of renewable energy in India, pointed out that these solar lights would replace the need for 2 billion liters of kerosene currently being burned for light by these families. The government of India heavily subsidizes this kerosene -- if it were given low-interest loans to finance the solar homes program at scale, it could pay back even the full 10,000 MW of photovoltaics and LEDs needed to give every villager some light, just from the savings on the kerosene subsidy. And in addition to having light, the villagers would save the money they currently waste on kerosene, and air pollution would be dramatically improved.

So here's a suggestion. Let's not wait for Copenhagen. Why don't the U.S. and Europe use the Pittsburgh meeting of the G-20, in late September, to make this simple offer: Take light off the table.

The rich nations agree to provide loans to the poor to give every lightless household on the planet a basic photovoltaic lighting system. The countries needing the program agree to train and support the human infrastructure -- installers, maintenance workers, trainers -- that will be needed to get this done. They can also get loans, if they desire, to build the factories needed to provide silicon cells and LED lights for their needs. This project would take these two key clean-energy technologies to scale seriously fast. The U.S., Europe, Canada, Japan, India, and China can compete to perfect these two technologies to meet what has suddenly become an enormous market.

The global cost is trivial -- and it's all a good investment. Solar cells now make more sense than kerosene to light remote villages all over the world. (OK, maybe not in Greenland -- but in most places.) And this could be an enormous confidence-building measure in the lead-up to Copenhagen.

Imagine a world where everyone has light -- and no one needs to burn carbon to have it.

 

 

Follow Carl Pope on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarlPope

Comments

[research]

Make sure the folks doing this know where to get the best deals on panels"

1.85 per peak watt! retail!
http://www.atensolar.com/14.html
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm

[research]

How about 19$ for a complete solar led motion sning lighting system:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=98085

[Graham Cliff]

Light is good. We are all told this from being kids. The problem however is that whilst it might be good if it is in the right placed, where needed and when needed, light for its own sake is very harmful. We today "enjoy" the work, rest and play of the 24 hour day. Light at night destroys the nocturnal habitat of many creatures. It causes circadian disruption which affects ALL of life on planet Earth. The "hidden" harm of the 24 hour day is insidious. It affects our health, our natural environment and its costs our pocket books. This is not rocket science. It is just plain commonsense. Lighting the bums of birds at night is wasted energy. As we pass peak oil this waste will be seen as manifest complacency. We need light BUT only when needed, in the right place where needed and in the correct amount. It should be turned off when no longer needed. Energy conservation should be the watchwords and not energy waste.

[JayDubs]

Whether or not artificial light disrupts circadian rythms is irrelevant. We have no authority over whether or not they choose light their streets and homes. They will continue to use lights at night regardless of what we do. The options are simply whether or not to help the villagers use solar led systems rather than kerosene lamps. This article makes the case that doing so will also help us (by decreasing pollution).

[SonofLiberty1]

Sorry Jay but this arguement is NOT about whether or not to light the streets...

IT IS ALL ABOUT GOOD AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND OUTDOOR LIGHTING.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TO CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:

WHERE DO WE NEED THE LIGHT?

ON THE GROUND, TO SEE OUR CARS WHEN WE COME OUT OF THE MALLS AND GROCERY STORES.

AND FOR SOME STREETS AND TURNPIKES AND INTERCHANGES.
.
AGAIN, LET'S USE LIGHT EFFECTIVELY AND EFFIECIENTLY AS WE ALL PAY FOR IT.

PLEASE REALIZE THAT WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT 3RD WORLD COUNTRIES HERE BUT IN EUROPE AND IN AMERICA.

[SonofLiberty1]

Carl,

We light up the sky all over the United States and it costs us about $2 Billion per year to do it.

No real reason for it, unless you like to light up the undersides of Clouds, Birds and Aircraft.

And it's such a REAL PROBLEM that it made the November 2008 cover of The National Geographic "The End of Night" that you can see here and read the accompanying feature story "Our Vanishing Night"

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/table-of-contents

But of course some things are so apparent that we don't even consider them at all...just as we take for granted both day and night.

Problem is though that, more and more as we "light the night" both in our bedrooms and in our streets and we forget that there might be real health and environmental problems that happen as we circumvent mother nature.

And in the last few years we've been finding out that shift workers are more prone to contracting cancer.

That is why the American Medical Association has decided to resolve to do something about light pollution recently...

http://docs.darksky.org/Docs/AMA%20Light%20pollution.pdf

[ezeflyer]

Good idea

[Wesley Epplin - Huffpost Blogger]

Great post, Carl! On top of the economic and environmental improvements you mention, there is much to be said for giving our world's poor the ability to read at night. Having the opportunity for many more waking hours of reading will allow people to have more productive lives, to learn about whatever it is they study, and (hopefully) to help lead their respective countries along a more educated, sustainable path.

Putting this type of distributed electrical infrastructure in place near the beginning of these countries' industrialization could help them avoid the dirty industrialization of coal and nuclear energy the Western industrialized world underwent.

[leduck]

if you really want to put an end to poverty..., give these people condoms
give 'em birthcontrol
let them have abortions.

population is the root of all evil.
the root cause of depletion.
put an end to growth (in consumption and population)
what are we, CANCER?
are we going to keep growing until we kill the host?

stop fiddling with the edges

[JayDubs]

Providing birth control options will not decrease population growth in those regions. In poor countries, parents depend on their children for income and support in later life. Until this system becomes economically unnecessary, through increased incomes that allow for savings, large families will continue to be the norm. The world consists of large amounts of people who act in rational self-interest. When poverty is involved, that self-interest is focused on concerns, such as food and shelter, that are more immediate than your environmental preferences. Such is reality.

[super]

My father did this over 30 years ago in one of the most populous states of India (as Health Commissioner). Not just condoms, but also offered financial incentives in the form of lottery prizes for men undergoing voluntary vasectomy. The problem of overpopulation is still there. There is no silver bullet.

[SonofLiberty1]

Wesley,

Google "Light Pollution & Cancer" and you will find out that there is a link between light in your bedroom as you sleep and breast cancer.

It has to do with disrupting the bodies ability to produce the hormone Melatonin.

And we are talking about incoming light through your window or light from your electronics or lights in your bedroom..as you sleep.

[Wesley Epplin - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for that -- I wasn't aware of that concern (and will read more literature about the subject).

I still would argue in favor of the option for light at night. Education and increased ability for personal productivity are of great value to the world and to individual societies. If people want light and the harm of conventional power plants can be avoided, that would be an accomplishment.

I'm not saying that it should be everywhere, nor that we have the right amount of lighting in the U.S.; it clearly gets abused. But the ability for a clean source of light for reading (at appropriate times) for example, would be helpful.

[leduck]

sounds like India may be a good place to stargaze
where's my 20 inch dobsonian?

[super]

Not true. Too much pollution and atmospheric haze from cooking fires, all burning fossil fuels.

[sixyfivepercentwater]

Is something wrong with candles?

[leduck]

nothing is wrong with candles, as long as you don't knock it over.

[theLEDway]

For more information on LED lighting... energy and cost savings...
visit our website: http://www.theledway.com
save the planet, one LED at a time

[AlanBreen]

I have been a big proponent of solar energy for many years and for the life of me I can not figure out why we are sending billions of dollars overseas, to countries that hate us so they can turn around and finance terrorist that want to destroy us. For those that are unaware, enough energy hits the surface of the planet everyday from the sun to power the entire world's energy needs for the next 10 years.

America needs to lead, not follow, when it comes to utilizing solar energy as one of our main sources of energy production. Solar panels are becoming more efficient everyday, and with the promise of thin celled solar panels, we should see a tremendous increase in their use. Both in residential applications as well as commercial buildings. However, I am concerned that we are still intent on using a grid system to distribute power across the nation. Think of how many more jobs would be created if we all took the route of being energy independent at home. Just as these villages in India want to move away from the use of kerosene, we should move away from fossil fuels as well as a national gird system.

There are some major developments in battery technology that will enable us to move in the direction of personal energy independence. One technology in particular that I find very promising is from a copy just outside Austin, Texas. EEStor, Inc.. http://www.solarenergyassociation.com/eestor.html