1 Life every 1 Second
Even in the 21st century, there are billions of people around the world who do not have access to electricity and India is no exception to the situation. The lighting requirement at night of these people is met by either kerosene lit lamps or low quality battery rechargeable lights. Either they produce fumes, which are harmful to human health, or they have high recurring cost of repair and exhibit poor performance. Kerosene fumes are responsible for killing about 1.6 million people each year due to indoor pollution. Because of these limitations, people living in rural & semi-urban areas are forced to time their activities either according to the daylight available to them or continue the activity in the poor light from these low quality sources and risk their health. Either option curtails their productivity in the long run and is one of the main reasons for their prolonged poverty. Despite fall in prices of crude oil, the price & availability of kerosene is getting worse day-by-day and adding to the burden of a householder. Moreover using highly inflammable kerosene always makes the household vulnerable to fire accidents causing loss of life and property.
d.light venture began in a garage in Palo Alto, California, in 2007 and moved to New Delhi in 2008. At that time the largest challenges were – product acceptance, distribution, and setting up after-sales. Companies selling solar lanterns were having trouble establishing rural retail networks that could effectively penetrate the rural & semi-urban markets. Most of the solar lantern companies were solving this problem by partnering with NGOs, rural entrepreneurs and moderate retail partners who already operate in rural markets. d.light quickly understood that this way achieving scale was not possible. The market was lacking trust on solar lanterns and consumers were not willing to bet their money on these devices. d.light quickly calibrated their approach and started learning the partnership approach for distributing solar lanterns.
Today, d.light is a global social enterprise delivering affordable solar-powered solutions designed for the people who do not have access to energy. d.light provides distributed solar energy solutions for households and small businesses that are transforming the way people all over the world use and pay for energy. Through 10 field offices and four hubs in Africa, China, South Asia and the United States, d.light has sold over ten million solar light and power products in 62 countries, improving the lives of over 50 million people.
Today our lantern production volumes have reached high enough to state that we impacted one life every one second.
This means that every second someone, somewhere in the world got a solar light and changed their lives.
- One person every second with the freedom to generate their own power from solar.
- One person every second freed from the toxic fumes of kerosene.
- One person every second with more time to study at night.
- One person every second freed from the stress that their children will be burned by an overturned kerosene lamp.
- One person every second that can reallocate money previously spent on kerosene toward more milk for their kids, school fees, or investment in their business.