Bill Nussey and Jacqueline Novogratz, the CEO of the social impact fund Acumen, were joined by Steph Speirs, CEO of “solar for every American” company Solstice, and Sarah Bieber, Acumen’s head of strategic partnerships.
(Steph has previously been a guest on the Freeing Energy Podcast, Podcast 059: Steph Speirs – Not everyone can afford solar. Here’s what one visionary company is doing to change that.)
The goal for this conversation was to discuss what former UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon called the “golden thread” (small scale renewable energy systems) and explore how this simple but game-changing “lego block” can lift the world’s poor no matter where they live.
Small-scale energy systems, like rooftop solar home systems in Africa, represent one of the best opportunities to address energy inequity across the globe. The underlying technologies are already changing lives in the poorest regions of the world, where electricity has never existed, all the way to more affluent but still greatly underserved areas in the West like low-middle-income communities.
These small-scale solar and battery systems (what we call “local energy”) have three unique properties
- Their prices are plummeting and will continue to do so
- They are the first universal energy solution: from the biggest cities to the smallest huts
- They are democratizing energy in ways unimaginable even a decade ago because they shift ownership, decision, and control into the hands of families and communities
To replay this LinkedIn Live event, click here.
For more information about the Freeing Energy book, check out the Freeing Energy website. The book is available for order on Amazon today.