[dramatic music] [Scott Tinker] Across the developing world, governments and utility companies are working to expand the grid to provide electricity, but one billion people still don't have it.

This is mostly happening in and around rapidly growing cities, where populations are dense and existing infrastructure can be extended.

Still for many, often rural customers, grid electricity is unavailable or unaffordable.

They need off-grid energy solutions.

♪ ♪ [energetic music] There are nearly three billion people today who still live with little or no energy.

And what I want to know is how they'll finally get it.

So this is sort of what it was, and that's the future.

- That's the future.

[both chuckling] - I'm Scott Tinker and I study energy.

Come with me around the world to meet people and communities as they Switch On.

[energetic music] [Asian music] Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, a busy metropolis of more than seven million people.

Even here, where the grid is well developed, I was surprised to learn that many people depend on off-grid energy.

Journalist, Andy Wein, took me to see a small community on the river's edge.

What are we looking at here with these floating?

- Oh, this is floating houses.

They are poor people.

- Okay.

- On the roof of the houses, yes, you can see some panels.

No official electricity provided by the city government.

[Scott] And what's spinning?

[Andy] It creates electricity for daily life.

[Scott] So it's like a little wind turbine.

- Ah, yeah, yes.

- Can we go down and meet these people?

[Andy] Ah, yes.

Why not?

- Yeah, that'd be great.

[Andy] We visit the house of a lady.

She stays here with her son.

- Okay.

- Her son cannot walk.

[Scott] Oh, he can't walk.

[Andy] We can sit here.

- Oh, great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

How long have you lived here in your home?

[speaking in Vietnamese] - It's very nice here because you have a fan and it's running on this large battery, tell me a little bit about that.

[speaking in Vietnamese] [speaking in Vietnamese] [speaking in Vietnamese] - And then what other things do the solar and wind run?

What other kinds of appliances do you have?

[speaking in Vietnamese] - And I see you have a USB-charging cell phone.

[speaking in Vietnamese] - With lighting, your sons can read at night when they're home.

[speaking in Vietnamese] - So how much does it cost?

- Several millions.

- Eighty dollars, that's a, that's very expensive.

If you had another battery like that, could you use it for lighting at night?

[speaking in Vietnamese] - What has electricity, how has it changed your life?

[speaking in Vietnamese] - Right, right.

So the fan is the most important thing.

So in order to scale up, you'd have to have more solar, more wind, more batteries to do cooking, to have lighting at night- [Andy] For studying.

- Quite a bigger, much bigger system.

[dramatic music] A bit farther out of town on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, farmer, John Kadenda has basic electricity, but blackouts are common.

He decided an off-grid solution was more affordable and more dependable to be sure his crops have water.

Did all of this grow with natural rainfall or do you have to use more water?

- Nothing.

You get nothing.

[Scott] Really?

It wouldn't grow at all.

- The next rain, we expect here in March.

- It's January now.

- We in January, yeah.

[Scott] So you have to irrigate.

- I have to irrigate.

- How does the water get from your system to the plants?

- I could get a solar system that has a pump, that is solar powered.

And this being Sub-Saharan Africa, that to me was key.

Where I can just use the solar energy which is available like 365 days a year.

I've been having the pump for the last four months, and there's no single day I've not had sun.

- Really?

- I've never used an electric pump.

'Cause what I do, I have a tank, and I just pump water to the tank.

And if it's in the evening, I want to do sprinkling, I just put on and it works.

- So you are pumping water to a tank that's elevated, and then when you need it, you use gravity.

- Gravity.

Here we have the solar panel.

- Yeah, what's the capacity in these?

- Eighty watts each.

So total of 160 watts.

- What does a system like this cost?

- You give them a deposit of $100.

They supply you the equipment.

So what you are supposed to do after that is you pay $45 a month for the next 12 months and the system is all yours.

And what I get from the farm, I can comfortably pay the $45.

- Okay, so your costs are covered here by what you get every month.

[John] Comfortably.

- That's fantastic.

Whoa, it's way down there.

- It's really deep, hand dug.

- So how deep is the water itself?

It looks like the top of the water is at least 10-12 feet.

- It should be more than 50 feet deep the whole well.

- Fifty feet?

- Yeah, 50 feet, so it's really deep.

- So you've got a lot of water in here.

A lot of water.

- A lot of water.

I pump the whole day.

I have the water all year round also.

- Wow.

- Initially, I used to pull the water manually with a bucket and a rope.

That was really tough.

- Oh, no kidding.

- Yes.

- So can you do this without a well like this?

Is it possible to- [John] To farm.

- Farm like this?

- No.

If it's possible, then you have to rely on the... You have to time with the seasons.

When you have the rains.

And you know what that means?

You'll have it at the same time with everyone.

So you all meet at the markets.

- Too much supplies, no demand.

And then there's... - Now I can just time when I want to plant or even harvest.

So I can play with the market, the demand and supply.

What I just do now, I just place it to a location I want it to pump.

And it's a simple set up.

- You just physically connect it and the pump starts and the sprinkler goes.

- Yes.

Are you ready?

- I'm ready.

Let's sprinkle, let's see.

[John] There.

[Scott] I can hear it.

Wow, whoa.

- Yeah, we have it.

- That's spraying.

I mean, it's spraying far.

- Yes.

And I think what would be good is for me to get four sprinklers at the same time.

And that would save time.

- Now you're thinking big.

- Yes.

[sprinkler splashing] - Still farther afield, I met with Isaiah.

A Maasai tribesman who now works as a traveling salesman.

Here too were the beginnings of the grid.

So we're standing under power lines right now which I didn't expect.

- Yeah, this was a government project, but there is no power supply to the community here.

- Okay.

- To take the electricity from this place to the homestead will take time.

It'll be a little bit costly.

[Scott] Often, this means that bringing electricity to the most remote areas becomes a lower priority.

[speaking in Maasai] [Scott] Isaiah works for M-Kopa, a Kenyan company stepping in to provide electricity where the grid does not.

- That's perfect and they get good reception here.

- Yes.

- Isaiah, you were raised in this community.

- Yes.

- You went to school here?

- Yes.

- Did you have any electricity in school or home?

- So this is really changing lives.

[dramatic music] [speaking in Maasai] Nice to meet you.

[speaking in Maasai] Nice to meet you.

Well, we should probably get started.

We got the kit.

[Isaiah] Yes.

- These home solar systems consist of a battery.

It's powered by a small solar panel on the roof.

You can charge a portable radio, flashlight, or cell phone, run some low wattage LEDs in the house.

Okay, we just pull it a little bit this way.

Tell me when.

Is that good?

- Yeah, that one is good.

- Okay.

Even run a very efficient TV.

The power.

Got it.

In Nairobi, I met with M-Kopa's Director of Market, Pauline Githugu.

- We have about 200 staff who are within the call center.

- Two hundred?

- Yeah, the basic activity here is to support our customers, making sure he knows that it's on credit, he knows how to pay for it, and then we switch it on.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Young people.

- Yes.

- A lot of buzz.

- Yes.

I'd say our average age here is probably 28- - Really?

- Or maybe even younger within the call center.

The payment for this is done by mobile money.

- So that comes through a mobile network?

- Yes, that comes through a mobile network.

So this device has a sim card.

So it operates like a mobile phone.

Say I want to pay 50 cents today, I'll go to the phone and I will pay M-Kopa.

And once it recognizes that, M-Kopa sends a message to the customer on this device that you now have one day of credit.

- So there's mobile technology that's allowing all of this- [Pauline] Absolutely, at the back end.

- Transaction to happen.

[Pauline] Yes, yes.

- Hello.

Hello.

- Hello.

So I can activate it now.

Okay.

- All right.

Showtime.

[dramatic music] This doesn't look like something I wanna drink, Pauline.

- No, it's not.

So these are a representation of just how much kerosene a family would use if they were not using an M-Kopa device.

So these are 365 bottles, which is just about the same amount of time a customer needs to pay off for one of our products.

So you can imagine this is all they inhale for a close to a year and for many years.

- Right, and they had to spend money on this too.

- Yes, so it's actually a displacement product.

So instead of paying for this, then you now pay for clean energy that you eventually own and don't have to pay for at the end of it.

- So this is it.

If you don't have the ability to use your phone and pay, you don't do this.

- No, you can't do this, you can't do this.

- This is the heart of your business.

Is this something that Kenya, M-Kopa, and others can share and export to the world?

- Absolutely.

I think this is something that we've proved can really work.

But it is predicated on the existence of a good mobile network.

[dramatic music] [Scott] While there aren't any wires running to this house, there is a cellular signal and a savvy startup company like you can now find in many developing countries.

Using new technology to get people their first electricity.

But there are millions of others living so far off the grid that bringing power to them is much more challenging.

[upbeat music] These are people like the Arhuaco, tribal nation in Northern Colombia.

They grow their own food, make their own clothes, and still speak their own language, Icu.

[upbeat music] They've never had electricity and still don't, except in a handful of villages like Sabana Crespo, where a couple of years ago, the Solar Electric Light Fund or SELF installed a solar microgrid.

- This is the central array here.

Twelve and a half kilowatts of solar power that has now changed the lives of this community.

- Yeah.

How did you discover Sabana Crespo and get involved in this village?

- Well, it all happened when a leader of the Arhuaco people came to Washington D.C. and requested our support to come in and bring solar power to his and several other villages here in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern Colombia.

- That is a remarkably rapid transformation for indigenous people to make though, right?

- It's true.

Not everybody in the world wants this.

We would never go and impose our solutions on a community that has not invited us.

For example, they have asked us not to bring power to their homes.

- So this array, this microgrid is powering more of the community center type things?

- Correct.

This is all for community based needs.

[Scott] The solar microgrid powers lights in the school, and health center, and on the streets at night.

It also helps power the community store and their coffee operations.

The only crop they trade with outsiders.

Both of these will help pay for replacement of the battery, solar panels, or other equipment as it wears out.

Steve McCarney is SELF's Project Manager for Latin America.

- This project had another component that has to do with sustainability.

- We recognized that if we were to power everything with solar energy, it was gonna take a lot.

And we were trying to minimize the use of batteries.

- My head's going to other options, renewable options.

Of course, you got this beautiful river here.

- Yeah, the hydro was the technical solution.

And the day we came in here, they said, no hydro.

- The elders of the village, the Mamos, decided that it wasn't in conformity with some of the spiritual values that they hold sacred.

Apparently, one of the intake pipes from the hydro plant was going to cut through sacred waters.

And so they basically nixed the whole plan and it forced us to reevaluate our solutions going forward.

- So cultural components play pretty large in probably everything you've done around the world, I would think, in different ways.

- Yeah, and especially with a group like the Arhuaco, they take their cultural values very seriously.

And if they say no, that's pretty much the final answer.

- So the need is here.

It can't be met by hydro under the current beliefs.

But everywhere in the seven villages, solar was a reliable option.

- So what's the size of, in terms of people, the human population?

We've seen a lot of folks coming in and out of this village.

How many does it serve, if you will?

- The catchment area for this village is approximately 17,000 people.

- Seventeen thousand.

- Seventeen thousand people.

- So you are 12 and a half kilowatt micro array and some smaller ones around is actually servicing a community of 17,000.

- You've seen what a little bit of energy can do.

- Yeah.

- We think about a few watts or a few thousand watts in the United States, it's nothing.

- Yeah.

- Right.

But a few thousand watts of energy make all the difference in the world.

- Yeah.

Steve and his wife, Osi McCarney, an Operations Manager for SELF in Colombia, took us to Gunchukwa, an Arhuaco village on the other side of the mountain.

Here, my son Derek and Doug Ratcliffe, both from our own non-profit, the Switch Energy Alliance would go through an Arhuaco cleansing ritual in their sacred waters.

Osi showed us how it's done.

[traditional music] ♪ ♪ These are democratic societies led by elders and spiritual leaders called Mamos.

[speaking in foreign language] Thank you for welcoming us to your village and we appreciate very much the nice ceremony we went through this morning.

It's very meaningful to us.

And we want to extend our respect back to you.

[speaking in foreign language] [Osi] They want to have a communication with us about what are the reasons that we are here and what they will like for us to bring.

[speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] - We are in a partnership with SELF and Switch.

So our interest is to understand your needs, and if you have a need for electricity in a way that we could help you, we would like to learn that.

But only to the extent that you want it.

And we would work with you to bring electricity to your village and work with you to teach you how to maintain.

Here, as in Sabana Crespo, Arhuacos decided they did not want electricity in their homes, to preserve their traditional way of life.

But they wanted lights and fans in the village meeting hall, and communal kitchen, and a streetlight in the square, all to encourage community gatherings.

And they wanted a refrigerator in their store to sell cold drinks and popsicles, a real luxury here, which would help fund the upkeep of the solar microgrid.

We promised to help provide it.

But to do that, we'd need some help.

Just a hundred miles from the Arhuaco Tribal Reserve, in the modern port city of Santa Marta, Colombia, Osi, Derek, and I went to an energy conference to try to find some support for our solar installation.

[upbeat music] Our plan was to spread the message to as many people as we could.

There were lots of excited young geologists at the conference.

We asked a few of them if they might like to help with our solar microgrid project.

One of the things we'd like to talk about is whether or not younger people, you all count, are interested in that?

- I think that it would be kind of something bad for those people, because I mean, they've lived that way for hundreds of years.

And that's the way they live.

So, it depends on what the energy would be used for.

- My observation when we were in the village with Arhuacons was, I agree, I think that the people there, they seemed content.

And it was interesting to me 'cause I expected to come in and see, I didn't know what poverty was, but now they are seeing their young people leave the village and one of their leaders said, we're losing sight of our culture and we need to do our best to teach our community about what it means to be Arhuacon.

And we need energy in order to help build that.

- It's tough to say, is it a good thing or a bad thing?

It's hard to qualify that.

I mean, have you seen some of that, Myra?

- I mean, if they have electricity there with solar panels, they will remain sustainable.

I think it will bring quality to their life, actually.

- If we come back here and can bring electricity to the village, is it something you'd like to join us and do?

- Yes, sure.

- Like you come with us and do that?

- For sure, yes.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

- I would really like to do that.

- Put on the work clothes with shovels, and wrenches, and wires in our hands putting up solar panels.

- I would really like to do that.

[Scott] These young professionals were ready to volunteer their time and that inspired us to make it happen.

[upbeat music] [Scott] It took us a year, but we finally organized and raise some funds for our return trip to Gunchukwa.

People and equipment converge in the tiny village of Pueblo Bayo, the end of the pavement before the road heads into the jungle.

[Osi] So everybody that is going to pull is up, right?

[Osi speaking in foreign language] [Scott] We asked a solar manufacturer to donate the panels.

Okay, watch your toes.

[Worker] Okay, I'm not doing anything, so I'll get out the way.

[Scott] Start peeling out one at a time.

[Osi] Uno, dos, tres.

Yay, another one.

[laughing] - Let's back it up a little so I can get my leg out.

[all laughing] The panels don't make electricity at night, which is when the Arhuacos need it most.

And during the day, their output is inefficient in morning and evening, and intermittent if there's cloud cover.

This means that every solar microgrid must have a large battery system capable of storing a few days worth of energy.

[upbeat music] The batteries were made in China, shipped to LA, trucked to Ohio for testing, then trucked again to Miami.

There they joined the solar panels which had made a similar trip from Singapore for another boat ride to Barranquilla, Colombia.

From there, they passed through three different trucks and finally into ours.

Right there, buddy.

All right.

Next.

- Well, I guess we got over the first challenge.

[Osi] Give me a five.

- There'll be a few more [Scott] To install the solar microgrid, our team of 17 people had made a long journey themselves.

All our students and young professionals, Steve and Osi from SELF, all of us from Switch were volunteers.

As we made the four-hour drive into the jungle, I was struck by how much energy, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and gasoline it had taken to get everything here, and how much money.

The equipment and provisions cost more than $50,000.

If we had to pay for the volunteers and their transportation, it could be over 100,000.

A solar microgrid, it turns out, is a macro project.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Scott] Then Arexi came up with the ride same time we did.

I dunno if you've met her.

Here she is.

It would take a similar commitment, people and resources to bring a solar microgrid to any one of hundreds of thousands of rural villages around the world like Gunchukwa.

♪ ♪ But we would focus on just this one.

♪ [gentle music] ♪ [gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪