BANGLADESH MICROLOANS BUY OFF-GRID NEW ENERGY

Better lives in Bangladesh – through green power; The environmental arm of a Nobel Prize-winning community development bank brings solar power, biogas, better stoves, and economic opportunity to rural residents.
Lisa Schroeder, June 24, 2009 (Christian Science Monitor)

"Here in the Bangladesh countryside, amid the emerald-green rice paddies and farmers threshing crops with their bare feet, are beige cows, giant haystacks… and solar energy panels – 200,000 of them scattered throughout the country…part of an innovative program conducted by Grameen Shakti, the environmental arm of Grameen Bank, which won a Nobel Peace Prize for its pioneering use of microloans in Bangladesh…Its projects also include biogas production, improved cookstove technology, and solar power training centers for women.

"Grameen Shakti (meaning “village energy” in Bangla) was started in 1996 as a way to bring electricity and better living standards to the country’s rural poor…When Grameen Shakti began, about 120 million people in the country didn’t have access to a source of electricity…Most were poor rural residents living in primitive conditions. By providing electricity to them, the organization hoped it would also help increase education rates and economic opportunities…Now, 13 years after the program’s inception, its efforts reach almost 2 million people in every part of Bangladesh."

A Grameen Shakti rooftop solar installation. (click thru for more on Grameen Shakti)

"Grameen Shakti first focused on solar panels…[N]ot only are solar panels portable, they are also better for the environment and more reliable than the nation’s present energy grid, which is not only unavailable to most areas outside cities but also prone to frequent blackouts.

"Traditionally, most rural dwellers rely on kerosene or candles as energy sources. But they’re costly, give negligible light, and emit fumes…Grameen Shakti used microcredit loans for disseminating the panels. Buyers make down payments of 15 to 25 percent and then pay off the loans in two or three years…The cost of the panels is offset by the buyers’ lower energy costs…[S]hop owners who purchase a solar panel system no longer have to buy candles in order to stay open at night…Now that they have reliable electricity, the children can study in the evening and don’t have to breathe kerosene fumes…

"…[W]hen women improve their lives, the whole family benefits…[I]n this Muslim society, and especially in the conservative rural areas, women are home alone during the day and aren’t allowed to let in male technicians unless a male family member is present…[F]emale technicians would automatically eliminate this issue…So women’s engineering technology centers were created…"

A Grameen Shakti biogas cookstove. (click thru for more on Grameen Shakti)

"Down a dirt road…behind a large chicken coop…[is] Mrs. Mohammad Abdur Razzak’s underground biogas plant. It’s another project initiated by Grameen Shakti…Razzak hoses her poultry coop’s waste into the connected chamber, where it ferments and creates biogas, which is released into a pipe that’s connected to her cooking stove…Since Razzak’s animals produce more gas than she uses, she makes an extra $71 per month by renting 10 cookstoves and the excess gas to her neighbors…The leftover slurry…is sold to local farmers for use as organic fertilizer.

"A 2006 World Bank study found that rural women and children under the age of 5 had the most exposure to indoor pollution from wood-burning cookstoves. To help alleviate this, Grameen Shakti designed a more fuel-efficient stove that produces less smoke and costs less to use…It burns half the wood of a traditional stove, the smoke is funneled away from the cooking area via a pipe, and the ashes can be used as fertilizer…"