Dealing with issues
But many people who are involved in solar projects say the access to power can help deal with those issues, too.
In some remote villages, the economy is "a barter system where they exchange crops for kerosene, kerosene for medicine and things like that," Gay said. "You have to give them the resources to transform themselves into a real currency-earning society."
In Parvathapur, a remote village in south-central India that is off the power grid, Greenstar is starting to find evidence of that. Last year, Greenstar invested about US$75,000 in solar panels, computers and Internet access to provide the village with money-generating tools.
The village now sells its music, art and calendars online to customers who include expatriate Indians in the US. Fifty-five percent of the revenue now goes to Greenstar to pay back the initial solar and infrastructure expenditure. "Within four years, we expect to have recovered our investment," Gay said.
Once the money is paid back, Greenstar's share will fall to 10 percent, which will go toward financing other projects in places like Jamaica, Ghana and the West Bank or future ones in Brazil and Tibet. "It's a self-replicating finance mechanism," he said.
In return, villages like Parvathapur receive not only a way to build a micro-economy for their music and arts products, but also a tool to better support their principal source of income, agriculture.
Gay said the village is using the Internet to learn the most efficient times to plant and harvest crops and the best markets in which to sell them. "The village is making more money than before," he said.
Over the last two years, with a similar goal in mind, the Grameen Bank has financed more than 30 rural communities in Bangladesh for energy projects. It gives interest-bearing loans to people in those areas to buy Internet connectivity products like solar panels and phone equipment. Enough entrepreneurial activity has emerged to achieve a 90 percent payback rate on the loans.
SELF has provided revolving-credit loans to various areas for home lighting. When it comes to projects with fully integrated Internet access, SELF relies on grants and does not have a specific repayment plan. It says it hopes that some type of commerce arises from the efforts.
Building such commerce appears crucial. Many vendors and project managers agree that if a village cannot set up a business model and generate enough income from the new energy and the Internet access, it will eventually be in the dark again.
"I've seen it many times," Gay said. "If the community isn't self-sustaining after a while, none of this will work."
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