Renewable Lighting – Lighting for Life

The map of Africa on our Home Page shows a satellite view of Africa at night. With the exception of the North African countries, South Africa, major cities like Lagos, Nairobi and Dakar, the majority - the poor - live in darkness. More than 85% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa lives without access to modern energy.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, hazardous fuel-based lighting (kerosene, candles and firewood) uses roughly 15% of already meagre household incomes. Fuel-based lighting is polluting, creates respiratory problems and causes widespread fires resulting loss of life, severe burns and loss of property.
Millions of children across sub-Saharan Africa are trying to study to the weak flames of candles. In South Africa alone, as many as 4,000 children die each year from drinking kerosene (paraffin) and burns from fires are the second leading cause of accidental death of children under five. It is estimated that as many as 45,000 shacks each year in South Africa catch fire causing incalculable loss.

To address the need and demand for off-grid, portable, safe, clean energy sources, the Freeplay Foundation has expanded into the renewable lighting sector. We undertook a series of lighting needs assessments of vulnerable households which included child and granny headed and those where someone was ill. Conducted in rural and peri-urban areas of South Africa, we wanted to understand what types of fuel-based lighting these households used, what they were being used for and how much they spent each month.

Based on the assessment results, we are working with Freeplay Energy’s engineers to create a range of fit-for-purpose clean energy lights and lanterns, called ‘Lifelights’. Like the Lifeline radio, they will be charged by either solar energy or by Freeplay’s patented wind-up technology which is more than twice as efficient as other wind-up mechanisms. Lifelights use LEDs (light emitting diodes) which are bright, highly fuel efficient, last for thousands of hours and are relatively non-toxic compared to fluorescent lighting. We recently completed field trialling prototypes of the first Lifelights in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa near the Swaziland frontier.
The lights can be safely used for studying, grading papers, home-based micro-enterprises, night time sales, night births and other medical emergencies and increased security. To ensure Lifelights are sustainable and contribute to economic empowerment, we will seek market-based channels to distribute Lifelights with an emphasis on the participation of women and women’s groups and people who have been burned in fires.

Clean, self-powered energy solutions can help the most vulnerable among us transform their lives. Like with the Lifeline radio, we are following what the Lemelson Foundation has termed the ‘idea to impact process’ which outlines the process of taking an idea through the stages of conception, incubation, market development and dissemination. The process emphasises entrepreneurship and innovation.