Over 18,000 families on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners Region of the United States lack access to electricity. Eagle Energy works with entrepreneurs, schools, and community groups on the Navajo Nation to set up market-based distribution networks for appropriate sustainable energy technologies, like affordable solar-powered lights, and to educate local people about the benefits of renewable energy.
Some families in the USA still live without access to electricity. Three quarters of these families - 18,000 households - reside on the Navajo Nation, located in the Four Corners area. Despite efforts to connect these households to the electric grid, a lack of funding and the remoteness of the reservation make grid access financially and practically unviable. As a result, many Navajo families use the same energy sources as their ancestors a century ago, including candles and kerosene.
With 500 solar-powered lights, Eagle Energy will initiate an education and outreach campaign to provide information about the benefits of clean energy technologies to rural Navajo people and provide access to clean energy technologies via a network of Navajo entrepreneurs. This initial effort will focus on the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Reservation.
Eagle Energy will: 1) Eradicate kerosene use for lighting on the Navajo Reservation; 2) Establish clean energy technologies as a viable and accessible alternative to grid-based electricity from coal-fired power plants; and 3) Facilitate rural economic development by creating job opportunities on the Reservation.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).