admin /23 March, 2006
An entrepreneur who specialises in helping the poorest of Bangladeshi
villagers has launched a new venture aimed at spreading access to
electricity. The aim of his new venture, Emergence Energy, is to
establish small, neighbourhood power plants in Bangladesh that can
provide electricity to a handful of homes, shops and businesses,
reported The Economist (11 March 2006, p.27).
Microcredit the key: Iqbal Quadir was inspired by Grameen Bank,
a Bangladeshi organisation well known for supplying “microcredit”, or
small loans, mainly to the rural poor. In a typical example, a woman
borrows enough money to buy a cow, and then repays the loan using the
profits that result from selling its milk. The loan is repaid, the
woman earns an income from the cow, and her neighbours can buy milk.
Mobile phone “could be a cow”: Mr Quadir looked at this model
and realised that “a cell phone could be a cow”. He formed a consortium
with Grameen Bank and Telenor, a Norwegian mobile operator that
provided the required telecoms expertise.
Six million subscribers: He was then able to secure loans from
development banks and aid agencies, and won a licence from the
Bangladeshi government. Grameen-Phone launched its service in March
1997, and today has more than 6 million subscribers, making it the
country’s largest telecoms operator.
“Village phones” generate high traffic: Around 200,000 of
Grameen-Phone’s subscribers are “telephone ladies” who provide access
to telephony in more than 50,000 rural villages, with a total
population of 80 million people. Despite accounting for a small
proportion of the mobile phones in circulation, these “village phones”
account for one-third of the traffic on the network, since they are
shared between a large number of users.
Biogas-powered generators: With Emergence Energy, Mr Quadir has
teamed up with Dean Kamen, an American inventor best known for creating
the Segway electric scooter. During 2005 they conducted a six-month
trial in two rural villages in Bangladesh of prototype generators,
created by Mr Kamen, based on a design called a Stirling engine. The
generators can be powered by biogas extracted from cow manure.
Catalyst for wider economic activity? The idea is that one
entrepreneur, funded by a microcredit loan, sets up a business to turn
manure into methane gas and fertiliser; another entrepreneur, also
funded by microcredit, buys the methane to power the generator, and
sells the resulting electricity. This will, Mr Quadir hopes, unleash
all kinds of economic activity.
Energy empowers: “Energy gives you the power to empower,” he
says. The main use of electricity was for lighting, says Mr Quadir;
using low-power bulbs, each generator, which produces one kilowatt of
power, was able to light up 20 households or shops. This allowed shops
to stay open later, enabled students to study for longer hours, and let
people employ television and other forms of entertainment.
