LED Lights and 12V Cell Phone Charging Mali
Apr 28, 2009 Africa, ICT4D, Mali, Mobile, Technology
Inspired by Jan Chipcase, I put together the following photo montage covering the ever increasing number of cheap Chinese LED lights that are transforming the way people access lighting. There are a lot of amazing NGOs doing work to address the issue of rural household lighting but I think they are at best a fill-gap to an existing market gap. The mass market solution (LED + small rechargeable battery + 1 W solar panel) that will really make a difference will be Chinese and at a price that will encourage extremely fast adoption rates. This is evident from the introduction of LED flashlights in Mali that completely took over the market in less then six months.
I also document the common way most cell phone charging is done in an off-grid environment. While it may not the be the most power efficient or battery safe method it works and is both cheap to the supplier and consumer. Used car batteries you can see are the “power lines” in a lot of African villages that form the basis of distributed power distribution.
12V Mali Photo Montage (sorry for the large file size 10.4MB)
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April 28th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
[...] Matt Berg has put together a wonderful photo montage on how LEDs and 12v batteries are changing the face of connectivity and cheap lighting in Mali. Reproduced here with his permission are the images from the (large) PDF. “The mass market solution (LED + small rechargeable battery + 1 W solar panel) that will really make a difference will be Chinese and at a price that will encourage extremely fast adoption rates.” [...]
April 29th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
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April 29th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
[...] LED Lights and 12V Cell Phone Charging Mali [via AfriGadget] [...]
April 29th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
[...] LED Lights and 12V Cell Phone Charging Mali [via AfriGadget] [...]
April 30th, 2009 at 3:43 am
Matt,
I’d very much like to do a story about this for our web site and would love to ask you a few questions? please get in touch asap if you’re interested.
Femi
May 6th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
[...] Jackie Burrell placed an interesting blog post on LED Lights and 12V Cell Phone Charging MaliHere’s a brief overview…that will encourage extremely fast adoption rates. This is evident from the introduction of LED flashlights in Mali that completely took… [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
[...] come into the market, be they mobile phone operators providing new communication opportunities, or cheap chinese batteries and LED lights for local energy/lighting [...]
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:17 pm
[...] come into the market, be they mobile phone operators providing new communication opportunities, or cheap chinese batteries and LED lights for local energy/lighting [...]
July 5th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Very nice montage!
Just one question:
Where and how people charge those car batteries?
Do they drive from their rural charging post
to the nearest town having electricity (from the grid),
or do they charge them with diesel generators, solar
panels, or what? (Would a small-scale wind generator
be a practical in Mali?)
The problem I encounter here in a Northern European country is
about the same, getting and storing electricity in an off-grid location: Connecting LED-lamps to 12V car batteries, periodically
recharged with a diesel generator. I would do that with Solar
panel instead, if they were a bit more reasonably priced!
What’s the price for those one-watt solar panels (would you have
a photo of one?) in Mali? At least the price of those LED lamps
(I guess those are US-dollars you list?) is outrageously cheap as compared what I have paid here. (Including some Chinese led lamps
officially rated for 12 volts, but which can’t take the
13 volts of fully charged car batteries without going poof!)
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