Capturing the sun in the land of the blue sky : providing portable solar power to nomadic herders in Mongolia

The program provided a vast, dispersed community of over half a million nomadic herders with access to modern forms of electricity through portable Solar Home Systems (SHS). Mongolia is a geographically vast country covering over 600,000 square miles but has a relatively small population of less than three million people. This nomadic lifestyle is a legacy of thousands of years of traditional culture and is dependent upon a harmonious co-existence with nature. The program provided photovoltaic SHS that were portable in design making the systems adaptable to the nomadic lifestyle of herders and complementing their traditional way of life. Specifically, the Rural Electricity Access Project (REAP) included a cost sharing mechanism with the herders that expanded the program for maximum impact. Under this arrangement, the herders had to purchase the SHSs, but given their limited income, the project provided a subsidy to cover roughly half of the cost of the systems, making them more affordable.