Greenlight Planet makes its mark as it has now delivered over seven million solar lamps to people all over the world. The company is now the leading SME making solar-powered mobile phone chargers and solar-energized lamps.
One of the finalists in the Zayed Future Energy Prize for 2016 iss an enterprise that makes lamps and phone chargers that use the Sun's heat to power them up known as Greenlight Planet. The company has been launched in 2005 by Patrick Walsh, a student from the University of Illinois who studied economics, physics and engineering.
Greenlight Planet has sold more than 1.8 million solar lamps over the last 10 years. The idea all started when Walsh went on a trip to India where he saw the hazards of lamps that used kerosene as the source of its light. He then collaborated with two of his university classmates, and they started a campaign to raise money to start a company that makes Sun-energized lamps and chargers. Years later, the company have already sold 10,000 solar lamps and went up to 600,000 solar lamps sold by 2012.
The solar-oriented company also employs people of India as their sales personnel. Presently, the company has now 6,000 Indian associates all over India selling solar lamps and mobile phone chargers.
A Sun-powered lamp might not sound like it would make such a big change in a human's life, but it does. The people of India use kerosene to light up lamps. Kerosene prices fluctuate over time and sometimes can be expensive enough to hit India's underprivileged population really hard. Also, fumes from kerosene-burning lamps are harmful to human lungs, and using such lamps can be fire-hazardous as it can cause fire accidents that may kill or injure people.
As Greenlight Planet provides solar-energized lamps and mobile phone chargers, they provide consistent sources of electricity. People in remote villages often walk miles to get their mobile phones charged as this is their only device where they can access email or read news or for communication purposes.
