While the country has targeted more solar as part of its climate goals, there has been limited progress due to regulations that don't allow households to sell power back to the grid, ruling out a way of defraying the cost that has helped people afford solar in other parts of the world. Solar power is still fairly rare in Indonesia. “I couldn’t really study at night before,” said Antonius Pekambani, a 17-year old student in Ndapaymi village, east Sumba. Now, villagers frequently gather in the evening to continue the day’s work, gather to watch television shows on cellphones charged by the panels and help children do homework in light bright enough to read. “Off-grid solar there plays an important role in that it will deliver clean electricity directly to those who are unelectrified,” said Daniel Kurniawan, a solar policy analyst at the Institute for Essential Services Reform. While barriers still remain, experts say off-grid solar programs on the island could be replicated across the vast archipelago nation, bringing renewable energy to remote communities. But there are still more than half a million people in Indonesia living in places the grid doesn’t reach. Indonesia has brought electricity to millions of people in recent years, going from 85% to nearly 97% coverage between 20, according to World Bank data. It’s hard for very poor people to get electricity, according to the report, and it’s hard for people who don’t have it to participate in the modern economy. Not having electricity at home keeps people in poverty, the U.N. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are home to some of the largest populations without access to electricity. Some 775 million people globally lacked access to electricity in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. to pay for the children.”Īround the world, hundreds of millions of people live in communities without regular access to power, and off-grid solar systems like these are bringing limited access to electricity to places like these years before power grids reach them. “It used to be dark at night, now it’s bright until morning,” the 30-year old mother of two said, carefully arranging and pushing red threads at the loom. But when a neighbor got electric lighting shortly after, she realized she could continue weaving clothes for the market late into the evening. When her husband died of a stroke in December 2022, Jawa wasn’t sure how she would pay for her children’s schooling. That's changed since grassroots social enterprise projects have brought small, individual solar panel systems to Laindeha and villages like it across the island.įor Jawa, it means much-needed extra income. Children sometimes studied by makeshift oil lamps, but these occasionally burned down homes when knocked over by the wind. Some people wired lightbulbs to old car batteries, which would quickly die or burn out appliances, as they had no regulator. Villagers in Laindeha, on the island of Sumba in eastern Indonesia, would set aside the mats they were weaving or coffee they were sorting to sell at the market as the light faded.Ī few families who could afford them would start noisy generators that rumbled into the night, emitting plumes of smoke. In some of the world's most remote places, off-grid solar systems are bringing villagers like Jawa more hours in the day, more money and more social gatherings.īefore electricity came to the village a bit less than two years ago, the day ended when the sun went down. It was just one bulb powered by a small solar panel, but in this remote village that means a lot. LAINDEHA – As Tamar Ana Jawa wove a red sarong in the fading sunlight, her neighbor switched on a light bulb dangling from the sloping tin roof.
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