Solar Power Brings Light to Quake-Darkened Haiti
With a crucial meeting today at the United Nations on the rebuilding of Haiti, renewable energy advocates are urging donors to consider the role solar power can play in a nation that has had one of the lowest rates of access to electricity in the world.
In the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated his country on January 12, Haitian businessman Alex Georges recalls both the darkness and the light.
From the Port-au-Prince house where he had been meeting with his business partner, Georges remembers stumbling into chaos: human suffering and a cloud of dust so thick that he could not see across the street.
But he also saw that at night, even though the shaken city had no electricity, there were bright islands of light—beneath the solar-powered street lamps that his company had installed at two sports fields. People were drawn to the glow and began to set up camps there.
Georges believes that solar energy can do more than provide temporary refuge for Haitians; he thinks it
