Energy Makers Academy: A mobile learning platform for universities to train rural energy innovators

Partners: Open Energy Labs

Country: Kenya

Technology: Leave no one behind technologies and business models

Stage: Mid

Stage: Round 10

At a minimum, solar home systems (SHS) provide access to lighting and phone charging. 1-10 W can power lights to replace kerosene lamps, however, a lack of maintenance or after-sales services exacerbated by harsh operating conditions often cause these SHS systems to fail. In Laos alone, the failure rate reached 65%, making it a key barrier to sub-Saharan Africa’s uptake of renewable energy.

Open Energy Labs, Transforming Energy Access – Learning Partnership (TEA-LP) (a network of African universities), and Strathmore University are developing existing technology suitable for universities to teach rural, remote and disabled students how to design, build and maintain a SHS. Open Energy Labs will test its updated software training platform and hardware with 100 users in Kenya – where 40% of people in rural areas lack access to electricity – to test the viability of this solution. “