Extends the Workday
It is dark by 6:30 year round in the equatorial latitudes. Electric lighting allows families to extend their workday into the evening hours.
Many villages where SELF has installed solar lights now boast home craft industries.
Improves Health
Fumes from kerosene lamps in poorly ventilated houses are a serious health problem in much of the world where electric light is unavailable.
The World Bank estimates that 780 million women and children breathing kerosene fumes inhale the equivalent of smoke from 2 packs of cigarettes a day.
Stems Urban Migration
Improving the quality of life through electrification at the rural household and village level helps stem migration to mega-cities. Also,
studies have shown a direct correlation between the availability of electric light and lower birth rates.
Improves Fire-Reduction
Kerosene lamps are a serious fire hazard in the developing world, killing and maiming tens of thousands of people each year. Kerosene,
diesel fuel and gasoline stored for lamps and small generators are also a safety threat, whereas solar electric light is entirely safe.
Improves Literacy
Electric light improves literacy, because people can read after dark more easily than they can by candle or lamplight. Schoolwork improves and
eyesight is safeguarded when children study by electric light. With the advent of television and radio, people previously cut off from electronic information,
education, and entertainment can become part of the modern world without leaving home.
Conserves Foreign Exchange
As much as 90% of the export earnings of some developing countries are used to pay for imported oil, most of it for power
generation. Capital saved by not building additional large power plants can be used for investment in health, education, economic development, and industry.
Expanding solar rural electrification creates jobs and business opportunities based on an appropriate technology in a decentralized marketplace.
Conserves Energy
Solar electricity for the Third World is clearly the most effective energy conservation program because it conserves costly conventional power
for urban areas, town market centers, and industrial and commercial uses, leaving decentralized PV-generated power to provide the lighting and basic electrical needs
of the majority of the developing world's rural populations.
Reduces Maintenance
Use of a SHS rather than gensets or kerosene lamps reduces the time and expense of refueling and maintenance. Kerosene lamps and
diesel generators must be filled several times per day. In rural areas, purchasing and transporting of kerosene or diesel fuel is often both difficult and expensive.
Diesel generators require periodic maintenance and have a short lifespan. Car batteries, used to power TVs must often be transported miles for recharging. SHS,
however, require no fuel, and will last for 20 years with minimal servicing.
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