Expanding rural energy entrepreneurship and access to clean lighting in East Africa
Summary
By 2016, Nuru Energy will make its portable, rechargeable LED lights available to up to 1.8 million rural households in East Africa thru an expanded network of 10,000 village-level entrepreneurs.
Commitment Target(s)
| Year | Commitment Target |
| 2016 | Nuru Energy is making its portable, rechargeable light-emitting diode (LED) lights available to up to 1.8 million rural households in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. Nuru Lights help lower energy costs by up to 85 percent and reduce dependency on kerosene, an inefficient, polluting, costly and unsafe energy source. The company’s unique distribution strategy is to sell its lights (and other off-grid products) indirectly to customers through a network of rural entrepreneurs. Customers bring their lights to village level entrepreneurs who recharge them with Nuru Energy’s POWERCycle pedal generator, which can recharge up to five Nuru Lights at a time in 20 minutes. The company expects to expand its network of entrepreneurs to 10,000 by 2016. |
Details
Nuru Energy was seed-funded by the World Bank in 2008 and currently operates in East Africa and India. With an enduring commitment to solving the global problem of energy poverty, which affects over 2 billion people worldwide, Nuru Energy has developed a one-of-a-kind robust and simple-to-use off-grid recharging platform, the Nuru POWERCycle™ pedal generator. The POWERCycle™ provides reliable clean, sustainable power anytime, anywhere and is hundreds of times more efficient than current solar-based solutions at a fraction of the cost. It is used to recharge both mobile phones as well as Nuru Energy’s own portable modular LED lights, which can be recharged five at a time in 20 minutes, with each light providing up to 10 days of light to a rural household. Our bottom-up approach is evident not only in every product that we develop, but also in the way that we deliver these products to market. We work with local organizations to recruit and train micro-franchise entrepreneurs, Nuru Energy Village-level Entrepreneurs (VLEs), who sell Nuru’s LED lights to their community and then offer POWERCycle™ recharging services for a small fee, typically earning in 20 minutes what they previously earned in an entire day. For its efforts, Nuru Energy has been recognized as the recipient of numerous global awards, including the prestigious 2010 UNEP Sasakawa Prize and the 2010 UNDP World Business and Development Award. To learn more, please visit: www.nuruenergy.com
Supporting resources
As this is our core business, all of our resources are dedicated to this effort.
UN goal(s) and issue(s) addressed
Children, youth and family welfare; Disasters and humanitarian affairs; Job creation...show all (8)Sustainable Energy for All (SEFA) objectives addressed
Access to EnergyNames of committing organisations
| Name | Type |
| Nuru Energy | Business (SME) |
Industry sector(s) that apply to this commitment
Alternative energy; Electronic & electrical equipment; Technology hardware &...show all (3)
Country(s) where this commitment will be implemented
Kenya; Rwanda; Uganda; United Republic of Tanzania
Open to additional partners
This commitment is open to additional partners. Please contact info@nuruenergy.com to indicate your interest.