India has a population around 400 million, which is the second-most numerous nation in the world after China. However, the majority their people are living in rural areas. Due to the underdevelopment of grid system, a large number of villages are still living and working without electricity and LED Lights. For most of them, life is tough. They even need to take long-distance journeys to charge their cell phones. Their dim houses still use kerosene lamps.
In order to change the situation, Brian Shaad and his friends set up a new LED Products company named Mera Gao Power, using low-cost solar panels and low-power LED lighting applications to build a micro grid. This Solar-LED micro grid can provide simple and clear indoor lighting for every inhabitants and also period outdoor lighting for public places. Most of LED lamps used in this system were imported from China. “We did considered to import these lamps from German or America. They provide good products with good qualities, but the cost is too much. We have very limited budget, could not afford them currently. All these lamps are from China, they are pretty good, with reasonable prices, we appreciate that.” Said Brian Shaad. Once being promoted, Solar-LED micro grid received a very positive respond and has been applied in another three neighboring villages. This micro grid is more suitable for small regions, occupying relatively small space for power generation. Although there are other alternative solutions, like solar lanterns (provide lighting and charge cell phones), but the cost of Solar-LED micro grid is shared among villagers. This system can be improved by using large scaled system for power generation and storage, which has higher using efficiency. The manager of Mera Gao Power indicated that only low-power LED lighting applications can be used in small scaled micro grid. Large lamps consume too much energy that this small sized grid cannot keep up.
“Villagers expressed their appreciates to us, now they have enough light in their houses during nights. We should do it in an earlier time. This system should and will get more attention in near future, we believe that.” Indicated by Brian Shaad in a recent published report about the Solar-LED micro grid.