USAID

solar installation

Funding rounds for off-grid solar continue to scale, as does the list of traditional energy companies as backers.  Nearly two months after solar lantern startup d.light design expanded its pay-as-you-go financing system for solar lanterns and home solar systems, the company has raised $22.5 million in a Series D debt and equity round to help… Keep reading →

Oil Exploratin Threatens Virunga National Park

Today, the U.S. Government is formally launching an innovative framework under President Obama’s Power Africa initiative to increase energy access for underserved populations across sub-Saharan Africa. Over an initial five year period, Beyond the Grid will leverage partnerships with 27 investors and practitioners committing to invest over $1 billion into off-grid and small scale solutions… Keep reading →


Essentially starting from scratch, Haiti has a unique opportunity to build the kind of sustainable power generation, transmission and distribution system that could be replicated in other developing nations.

Although deep poverty remains a challenge, the country’s leaders say they are eager to move forward into the twenty first century with governmental and economic stability supported by reliable energy infrastructure. Keep reading →


What do gadget-laden outdoor enthusiasts in the developed world have in common with rural villagers that have no access to electricity in developing nations? They could soon be using the same clean hydrogen generation technology being developed by a small, private US chemical company.

“It’s been a long road and providing hydrogen has been hard to do, we are lucky that we can provide a reliable on/off system,” SiGNa Chemistry’s CEO Michael Lefenfeld recently told Breaking Energy. Keep reading →


NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), plus the State Department, NIKE, Inc. and other private-sector partners, have been collaborating on a unique venture that identifies and provides support for innovative ideas and technologies dealing with such global challenges as water resources, clean air, health care and energy. Led by Diane Powell of NASA, the program known as LAUNCH brings scientists, entrepreneurs and inventors to the Kennedy Space Center for intensive two-to-three-day forums to focus attention on their innovations and to help them accelerate the adoption of their breakthrough ideas.