Namibia’s first Gold Standard-certified project will finance UK-designed solar lights to serve every household without grid access across the entire country.
LONDON, UK. Jan 28th, 2021: Namene Solar today announced their latest carbon offsetting project in Namibia, certified by Gold Standard. It’s the first project in Namibia to receive the certification. It will see climate finance subsidise the sale of the company’s award-winning solar lights to rural homes and informal settlements across the country.
Currently just over 3% of Namibia’s population use solar to light their homes. Many people living off-grid in rural and peri-urban areas rely on paraffin candles and kerosene lamps for lighting. This is costly and harmful to health as well as contributing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. They are also a leading cause of fires, which are a major issue in Namibia’s informal settlements.
Namene Solar’s project uses climate finance to replace fossil fuel-based lighting with renewable solar lights that provide clean, safe light at a truly affordable price, for the first time.
Namene Solar’s Managing Director Patrick Lagrange said:
“We’re delighted to receive this certification and now look to rapidly scale the deployment of our lights nationwide across Namibia. By unlocking the carbon value of a solar light we can provide clean, affordable light for customers living off-grid and in informal settlements. Climate finance schemes like Namene Solar’s are vital to cut carbon emissions and reach the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Our solar lights compensate for carbon emissions, eliminate harmful fuels and improve education and economic outcomes for households.”
Across Namibia 652,000 solar lights will be distributed, avoiding 252,000t CO2 and benefitting 1.2 million people. On average households save $522USD by cutting out the purchase of kerosene for lamps.
This is Namene Solar’s second Gold Standard project, following the certification of their Zambian project in December 2020.
The project directly contributes to several of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including SDG1: no poverty; SDG7: universal clean energy and SDG13 climate action. The solar lights also have multiple, immediate benefits for users which include improving education outcomes and reducing health risks and fire hazards associated with kerosene lamps. Namibia is the second country added to the company’s solar light carbon credit programmes which cover a number of Sub-Saharan African countries that together have a significant impact on global carbon emissions.
