Solar mini-grids offer clean-power hope

A recharging station for mobile phones in Ogbabo village, Doma, in Nassarawa state, Nigeria, powered by solar energy. Mini-grids – small power stations usually supplying rural communities – are not new. But the drop in solar technology costs over a decade has prompted a growth in clean energy mini-grids with rural Africa poised to benefit the most. — AFP

WORKING as a nurse in her rural Nigerian village, Andat Datau faced more than her share of challenges. But delivering babies by torchlight was always hard.

Off-grid for years, her Sabon Gida village relied on diesel generators or lamps and, like millions of other Africans, Datau often got no light at all.