Providing Solar-power Lighting and Telecommunications for off-the-grid Communities in the Philippines
- Renewable Energy
- Solar Photovoltaic
- Science & Technology
- Energy Efficiency
- Southeast Asian Forests
- Indomalaya Realm
| Bioregion | Philippines & Sulu Sea Tropical Forests (IM15) |
| Category | Energy Transition Our project categories represent one of three core solutions pathways to solving climate change. Energy Transition focuses on renewable energy access and energy efficiency. Nature Conservation includes wildlife habitat protection and ecosystem restoration, as well as Indigenous land rights. Regenerative Agriculture supports farmers, ranchers, and community agriculture. |
| Realm | Indomalaya The Project Marketplace is organized by the major terrestrial realms divided into 14 biogeographical regions – N. America, Subarctic America, C. America, S. America, Afrotropics, Indomalaya, Australasia, Oceania, Antarctica, and the Palearctic realm, which coincides with Eurasia and is divided into Subarctic, Western, Central, Eastern, and Southern regions. |
| Partner | New Energy Nexus |
One Earth’s Project Marketplace funds on-the-ground climate solutions that are key to solving the climate crisis through three pillars of collective action — renewable energy, nature conservation, and regenerative agriculture.
According to the Philippines report from the Senate Committee on Energy, of the 2.4M households that are not grid connected, more than 75% are situated in the Visayas and Mindanao regions in the central and southern parts of the country. Currently, these families depend on candles and kerosene lamps as their light sources, and they use repurposed lead acid batteries to charge their phones for communication.
Light of Hope has been helping underserved, off-the-grid communities in Visayas since 2018. Their Cloudgrid solution is a small solar generator system that helps a household get enough power for more than 12 hours of light, along with mobile phone charging for its neighbors. Through the Light of Hope payment model, Cloudgrid owners can offer charging services to nearby houses for a fee, out of which they pay for the device and deployment costs.
Through this project, 1,400 households across 10 communities in the Visayas region have been provided with access to lighting with solar lamps made from recycled PET bottles.
An affordable smart solar generator system has also been developed that will enable households in rural off-grid areas to power basic appliances and collect usage data that will be beneficial to telecommunication and utility companies. After spending roughly $20 per month on kerosene lamps and candles, each household will now pay only $12 per month for the entire system.
This project aims to uplift the lives of less privileged off-the-grid communities by providing affordable clean energy access, helping to mitigate climate change by using clean, renewable energy and IOT technologies. A series of surveys will target the beneficiaries to help inform the design of Cloudgrid units to be built and deployed in the communities. At the same time, monitoring of energy usage and GPS locations will be enabled to provide a real-time tracker of the equivalent CO2 emissions avoidance. More Cloudgrid units can be developed with additional capital, and the platform can be enhanced for reporting and energy usage monitoring.
Supporting New Energy Nexus in the Philippines will enable the team to engage the local energy community to scale Light of Hope’s Cloudgrid program, run regular energy meetups, and expand other innovative startup acceleration programs.