Case Study
Light for All Program Brings Power to Rural Brazil
Application: Residential, Rural Development
Location: Brazil
Year: 2003
Product: SureSine inverters
System size: 160W of solar for each installation
Partners include: Light for All, Kyocera Solar
Nearly 10 million people in Brazil’s rural areas live without access to electricity and approximately 90% live below the poverty line without basic amenities such as electronic devices, refrigeration and lighting. Brazil’s federal government launched the “Light for All” program in 2003 to deliver electricity to these families. The program covered equipment and installation costs to provide citizens with necessary materials and training to operate and maintain renewable energy installations in their communities.
Morningstar shipped 20,000 SureSine inverters for the program to convert the solar-generated electricity into usable AC power. The SureSine’s sealed design requires no cooling fans, eliminating the risk of failure that could shorten internal component life. The inverter is also rugged and encapsulated to withstand harsh conditions. It’s also “fault-tolerant” with built-in circuitry protection to resist damage from installer or user error.
By May 2016, 15.6 million Brazilians benefited from the program, which also created 485,000 jobs. With this success, the government extended the program to 2018 to bring another million citizens out of the dark.
Read more about the project here.