JUNE 2021 | 3RD EDITION
Energy Access and Financial Inclusion after COVID-19 in Bangladesh
Image adapted from Power Swarm: A revolutionary approach to solar microgrids
2020 and the first half of 2021 have been a test of resilience, not only for SOLshare as a company but also for SOLshare’s users. The ongoing global health crisis caused by COVID-19 has led to an influx of migrant workers into Bangladesh in search of income-generating opportunities, and an exodus of people from the capital whenever new lockdown restrictions were announced. A migrant‘s social security lies in her village, where she is assured food and accommodation.
Overnight, this led to the doubling of the average household size in SOLshare grids, from 5 people to 10 people on average in the first half of 2020. As part of the World Economic Forum’s COVID Action Platform, SOLshare has been engaging in various activities throughout the year to ease the adverse impact on its users. Prominent among those efforts have been under a COVID-19 Project co-financed by the German Development Finance Institution (DEG) from public funds of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, where SOLshare was able to quickly transfer energy subsidies to each of the users’ meters and provide community pharmacists with healthcare packages that included special healthcare equipment such as electric nebulizers, among other appliances.
Image adapted from Power Swarm: A revolutionary approach to solar microgrids
More recently, Al Jazeera and Pelican Pictures produced a short film on SOLshare and on its swarm electrification journey. The short film can be found here.