What SELF Does

Addressing the earth's energy and environmental problems, while working to improve the quality of life of rural people who have yet to be connected to a fossil-fuel powered national utility grid, SELF seeks to assist developing world communities and governments in the acquisition, financing and installation of decentralized household solar electric systems that convert sunlight directly into electricity. Using the latest photovoltaic (PV) technology, SELF helps rural families make the leap from the 19th to the 21st Century.

Acting as a catalyst, SELF brokers the purchase and delivery of solar home lighting systems (SHS) working with rural solar electric associations, local PV-system suppliers, solar entrepreneurs, farmers cooperatives, donor agencies, corporations, non-governmental organizations, multilateral development banks, and governments. SELF also helps start up rural solar enterprises.

A primary mission of The Solar Electric Light Fund is to overcome institutional barriers and generate changes in attitude--in the industrial world and its donor agencies and in the developing world's governments and financial institutions--towards the understanding, acceptance and application of solar power.

SELF seeks to accelerate commercial market acceptance of solar-generated electricity in developing countries through "solar seed" projects. SELF provides technical assistance and training programs, and develops grass-roots financing mechanisms. Through media communications, educational programs, and awareness campaigns, SELF promotes decentralized green power throughout the developing world.

SELF has developed pilot PV projects in China, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, the Solomon Islands, Navajo Nation, Bhutan, and Nigeria, where SELF has demonstrated that household electricity provided by solar PV is the most reliable, affordable, and economic source of power for rural households.

After ten years catalyzing PV development, SELF has come to witness "photovoltaic rural electrification" as a commonly accepted idea. The World Bank, USAID, the U.S. Department of Energy, the European development agencies, the Asian Development Bank, and numerous bilateral donors and commercial lending institutions worldwide are all launching solar "initiatives." The New York Times has featured photos of SELF's Solar Home Systems in China and India on the front page of the business section, and reported on the vast new market for off-grid solar in the developing world. Environmental concerns are driving the quest for clean energy. The question of how two billion people will emerge from centuries of darkness into an electrically-lighted future will be one of the critical issues of the 21st century.

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