The Power Connectors Leaders Program
The Power Connectors Leaders program will invest in a new group of young leaders who will ensure clean electricity connections in their communities, Local government and States within Africa, South East Asia and India.
Africa, India and South East Asia and are the regions with the highest levels of poor electricity access globally. 600 million persons lack access to electricity in Africa, 304 million in India and 65 million in South East Asia respectively.
Climate change is disrupting economies but importantly, low or no access to electricity is accelerating poverty. In Africa, parts of South East Asia and India, lack of electricity is a matter of urgency. And so Renewable energy is not just one stone that tackles the two birds, but access to knowledge on the technicalities and business aspects promotes faster energy transition and accelerate access to green jobs.
Program Outline
The Power Connectors will receive specialised training on how to manufacture and assemble a solar panel, designing a solar power system for any type of load and the rooftop installation of solar panels in order to create and deploy sustainable electricity within the regions that lack them through their own businesses or as skilled workforce.
Solar Skills Empowerment
The leaders will receive access to intensive training, work opportunities, mentoring and networks in the solar power industry.
Electricity for All: Empowering Leaders with Knowledge
The mandate for each leader is to use specific knowledge gained to provide electricity in the areas that lack them in their communities or local governments.
Nigeria's Pilot Project with Community Leaders
This project will be piloted in Nigeria in November 2023 with initial 25 leaders each representing electricity deficient communities.
Year-Long Leadership Mentoring
All leaders will receive a 1 year mentoring,
The Rationale for Africa (The Africa Case)
Africa has the strongest solar potential in the world. The continent also leads in the largest deposits of natural resources like gas and other minerals.
But low investments into Africa’s renewable energy space is one of the biggest obstacles to deploying clean technology and combating climate change. The biggest emmitters G20 have been tasked with funding Africa’s clean energy transition, starting from the 2009, the 100 billion dollar pledge per year to developing countries per year, but they have never met up with this pledge in any single year.
There is a strong need to promote energy access in Africa – but that will not happen if we keep importing solar panel. 600 million Africans are without electricity access. 50 % percent of who are youths. We can accelerate access faster if the people themselves who feel this lack of electricity in various communities, especially youths are given the tools of trade and training needed to change their own fortune.
The Rationale for South East-Asia and Rural India
According to IEA, Still, around 65 million people across the ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries are without access to electricity.
Southeast Asia is currently facing major challenges regarding climate change, biodiversity loss, and increasing inequalities reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Beyond economic prospects and political uncertainty, the biggest threat to Southeast Asia is climate change.
More than 77% of Southeast Asia’s population lives by the coast, making them most susceptible to sea level rise, including major cities such as Bangkok and Jakarta. Riverine communities suffer from prolonged droughts which lead to dried up rivers, exacerbated by the building of dams upstream or salt water intrusion which damages crops at the estuaries.
Accelerated renewable energy as a form of electricity not only provides access for 65 million people but also deals with climate change.
For Rural India, 13% are without Access to electricity.
Of the world’s 1.3 billion people who live without access to power, a quarter — about 304 million — live in rural India in states such as Bihar. Despite being the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, vast swaths of the country still lie in darkness.
Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, has a population of 103 million, nearly a third the size of the United States. Fewer have electricity as the primary source of lighting there than in any other place in India, just over 16 percent, according to 2011 census data. Families still light their homes with kerosene lamps and cook on clay stoves with cow-dung patties or kindling.
How the Power Connectors Leaders Program Makes a Difference
We can promote access to clean electricity faster if the people themselves who feel this lack of electricity in various communities, especially youths are given the tools of trade and training needed to change their own fortune. Instead of waiting for funding or energy transition finance, this project will hand over the power to the hands of the people by involving them in the process of creating new solar panels that will light up their communities.
This strategy ensures speedy energy transition through the “faster” adoption of solar energy as medium, because the more the people are involved, the more they understand the technology, then the more they customise it and the faster they accept and adopt it.
Besides this, recipients of this program will assist the government to lead effort in promoting electricity access in these communities. As skilled workers, they have the technical capacity to deploy renewable energy projects as employees of established solar companies and through their own solar businesses as entrepreneurs.
The Power Connectors leaders will receive specialised training on how to manufacture and assemble a solar panel locally, designing a solar power system for any type of load and the rooftop installation of solar panels so that they are empowered to create sustainable clean electricity within their regions that lack them.