Green Energy for A Billion Poor


Green Energy for a Billion Poor: How Grameen Shakti Created a Winning Model for Social Business
by Nancy Wimmer

Main Points:

  • "Grameen" means rural.
  • "Shakti" means energy or force of power flowing through. Shakti also means "the Divin Mother" or female energy.
  • In 1976, Mohammad Yunus loaned $27 to forty-two people to start their own small businesses. This opened the world's eyes to the genius of micro loans. Thirty years later his Grameen bank boasts over 7 million borrowers and a 99% loan repayment rate.
  • Yunus was teaching at a University in Chittagong in Bangladesh when the country was going through a famine. He noticed the money lending principles and how harsh they are. He started taking the loans on behalf of other people, and started loaning that money out to others. So he created the Grameen Bank. Every month they are opening 40, 50, 60 branches and every month they are disbursing $60-70 million. In 2006, Yunus earned the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • Bangladesh needed to address the most basic of human needs: energy. Bangladesh has an electricity shortage (70% have no access, and the 30% that receive it are having unreliable electricity). We don't have access to the information age without energy. 
  • Problem:Technology is key to climbing up the rungs of development and without modern energy there is no modern economy. You are bound to be living at the most basic level. 
  • Mohammad Yunus' Answer: "As we went on with our work at Grameen Bank, we see opportunities coming and we wanted to capture it. Since there is no electricity, we thought 'why not solar power?' Everybody said no it was too expensive, no one would buy that. So we came up with a financial package which is very convenient for them. You you pay monthly over a period of time. So we created a company, a solar-powered company which was Grameen Shakti." 
  • Grameen Shakti was founded in 1996 and took on the task of convincing the Bangladeshi's that renewable energy was not just affordable but also better for their health. 
  • Many homes grew up with the kerosene lamp that is polluting the area and harmful to health. Solar power can help replace this at the same cost. Initially you needed to visit a customer 15 times to convince them, but now demand is growing. In the area of Mawna there are about 771 panels installed (2006) and next year they aim for 1,000. 
  • Grameen Shakti transforms the family, and for the women it is to provide light (6-7 hours/ day) so that the children have light to study. Grameen understood that developing solar energy was developing women in the community (hence promoting human rights). 
  • Not even 1% of the borrowers of conventional banks are women. The Grameen Technology Center is 100% women and it is for women to teach students in the community about renewable energy. (i.e. you keep a solar panel at a 23 degree angle for optimal radiance)
  • Today they sell 3,000 units of solar systems per month. They also sell biogas to the communities. Cow Dung can be converted into biogas and the waste slurry can be used as fertilizer for the fields. 
  • The biogas plant size depends on the size of the family. A 1.2 cubic meter plant can support a family of 4-6 people. A 1.4 cubic meter plant can support a family of 6-8 people in size. The installation for cooking set is 2100 taka and for a cooker it is 700 taka. 
  • Today Grameen Shakti serves 1 million people, but Bangladesh has a population of 145 million people. They want to show how biogas and renewable energy can become a large impact on the society at large. Grameen Bank now has 8.7 million customers and 97% of them are women.
  • We create what we believe in. We create what we imagine. If we do not imagine, we cannot create. We need to imagine a poverty-free world and that world will happen. 

Watch this PBS Documentary on Energy for a Developing World!

To learn about the History of Microfinance listen to Mohammad Yunus's 2012 Ted Talk!

Watch the 16th anniversary of Grameen Shakti when they brought solar homes to 1 million people!

Here is a fun and short explanation of Grameen Bank! 

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