Grameen Shakti

Hello everyone,

This post is about Grameen Shakti, the energy company Gaurav Podar and I worked for during the summer. Grameen Shakti was founded in the mid-nineties by Muhamad Yunus and Dipal Barua, one of Yunus’ students when he started microfinance back in the seventies. Dipal, who is also the current number two of the bank, heads now an organization of more than 2,000 people with offices all over the country. They have installed close to 200,000 solar panels in rural households and want to reach 1 million in the next three years. Their clients pay back the microloan to purchase the equipment over three years and after that own a source of electricity that usually last up to twenty years. On top of solar energy they have other products like Improved Cooking Stoves and Biogas Plants. We helped them refine a plan to train young women to install and repair the Solar Home Systems so they can become independent entrepreneurs.

PBS did a great 30 min documentary on them. The excerpt is on YouTube (with Morgan Freeman as narrator and Jeffrey Sachs as economic expert)



Juan Aristi