Solar Jobs & Energy - Village Minigrids in Lesotho

Hello again to everyone,

Summer is nearly upon us in Lesotho, and our team is excited to share a bit about the work they've been doing with the communities here in Lesotho.

Much of our work over the past few months has been critical communication and learning from the communities where we work.  This is an important part of the 20MW project - making sure we understand how the project will affect people's lives and livelihoods, and if necessary updating the project design to make sure the impacts of the project are as positive as possible.  It is also a critical step in the design of community minigrids - understanding how much power people might need, how much they can afford, and how many buildings in each village should be connected.  At this juncture our team has become expert at the process - one of our fellows this year even designed a custom tablet-based app for our team so that the process of data collection and of data sharing can be more efficient!  It was very exciting to see that come online.

One other piece of exciting news is that we have just signed a lease with the Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC) for a manufacturing space where we will be able to actually build solar energy hardware in Lesotho and at the volumes needed for all of the community systems we hope to be building.  We still have a few months of renovations before we'll be able to move in and get that space up to speed, but I am looking forward to sharing more pictures when that happens!

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season.

-Matt