Resources

Solar

Off-Grid Solar for Rural Development

Wole Soboyejo^a1 and Roger Taylor^a2

^a1 Princeton University, USA

^a2 National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA

The World Bank estimates that over two billion people on the planet live their daily lives without access to basic, reliable electric services. Rural populations in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and island nations need clean water, health services, communications, and light at night. Small, simple, solar electric systems are part of the solution—increasing the quality of life, often at a cost that is less than what is presently being spent for kerosene, dry-cell batteries, and the recharging of automotive batteries that must be lugged to the nearest town on a weekly basis (see Figure 1).

Wole Soboyejo can be reached at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Olden St., Princeton, NJ 09544, USA; tel. 609–258–5609, fax 609–258–5877, and e-mail soboyejo@princeton.edu.

Soboyejo is a professor of materials in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and the Princeton Institute of Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM) at Princeton University. He is also the director of the US/Africa Materials Institute (USAMI) and the Undergraduate Program in Materials at Princeton University. Soboyejo is chair of The African Scientifc Committee of The Nelson Mandela Institutions. He has spent approximately 10 years working on problems of solar energy for the poor. Soboyejo's efforts include research on organic electronics for photovolta-ics and organic light-emitting devices, passive solar energy concept for thermal management of homes, and solar energy projects that provide alternative sustainable solutions.

Roger Taylor can be reached at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA; tel. 303–384–7389, fax 303–384–7419, e-mail roger_taylor@nrel.gov.

Taylor manages the State, Local and Tribal Integrated Applications Group at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. Prior to his current position at NREL, Taylor spent a decade working in international rural development and six years working with Native American communities throughout the U.S. With 30 years of experience in renewable energy technology development and application, his quest has been to expand and promote the use of renewable energy to support sustainable economic development both domestically and internationally.