Beginning with a vivid description of how dark Africa is at night, he launches into examples showing that the majority of Africa has no electricity. From the start, a shocking figure is that “two-thirds of Africans do not have access to reliable electricity”. The article then discusses some of the unreliable forms of electricity that are pervading poor countries and the costly effects of this standard. First of all, not having power hinders almost every aspect of these people's lives. Everything from their economy to their health is held back by the inability to perform basic tasks, like cooling vaccines. Another incredible figure mentioned is that 36,000 women die during pregnancy in Nigeria! One can only imagine how much reliable energy could reduce that figure. Second, even parts of Africa with electricity often experience frequent power outages. Ghanaians call them dumsor, which means “from time to time.” With these cuts estimated to cost Ghanaian small businesses almost half of their revenue and cost the economy around 2% of GDP, the potential for economic growth is enormous. In fact, "the World Bank estimates that if they had continued energy supplies, sub-Saharan African economies could grow on average two percentage points faster than today" to quote the article directly. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay However, the problem actually lies in the high cost of expanding the power grid! Fortunately, innovative companies are finding their market in rural African communities and selling them mini rooftop solar installations. These installations use a solar panel and battery to charge a few lights, a radio and a phone charger. They also adopted payment plans through phone companies to spread the upfront cost. Adoption of such a system is spreading rapidly as they become less and less expensive. However, they only provide a small amount of energy and are therefore not an ideal solution. Another option is solar “mini-grids” which can power entire villages. Even though their initial costs are higher, many organizations try to find ways to spread the expenses. Although there isn't much data, it shows that installing a mini-grid significantly increases sales and revenue in the local area. In addition, supporting industries arise to ensure this economic development. Mini-grids could be the first step towards a more advanced standard of living in Africa if only they could figure out the logistics of financing. This article absolutely enlightened me on two things: ; the extent to which Africa is still underdeveloped and the evolution of renewable energy prices. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought renewable energy sources were relatively expensive to implement, but after finding out how poor Africa is (in the sense that they don't don't even have electricity in most clinics!), I supported their adoption. of eco-friendly electricity, I feel incredibly optimistic about the future of our planet. I found some of the statistics in this article incredibly shocking, as I thought Africa was poor but at least mostly urbanized and at a certain level of technological development, but I find that most of them!