Clean technology or ‘Clean Tech’ is the shorthand term coined for innovations that are both energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

Estimates suggest nearly two billion people worldwide have no access to any form of electricity supply and most live in rural areas. There are countless others who have some form of supply but suffer frequent outages making daily life even harder and virtually impossible to develop any kind of serious business enterprise.

In contrast, the sun supplies 15,000 times more energy than is currently used worldwide, and wind has the potential to generate over 40 times the current global electricity use. The opportunity exists to harness the power of water for these nations who invariably have rivers and benefit from a coast. Hydro power stations have operated for decades but this technology needs to be exploited for use in supplying smaller communities.

Solar, hydro and wind power all offer an environmentally friendly power solution for Africa’s developing nations and offer hope to communities isolated by distance from any existing power grid network. Solar and wind power are now established technologies. To date, however, solar equipment has been considered specialist and therefore costly but this is changing as technology develops and economies of scale bring about significant cost reductions.

The developed world is facing the challenge of global warming by electing to reduce emissions from fossil fuels.They have the money and luxury of choosing to develop solar and wind technology, no matter the cost, because they already have power! The globes poorest and least developed continent is being told to use these expensive power supply methods and not contribute to climate change by exploiting their vast quantities of fossil fuels, that so far have remained buried because of infrastructure issues.

Wind power is seeing huge global growth in recent years, and wind power generation more than quadrupled between 1999 and 2005. Most modern wind power is generated in the form of electricity by converting the rotation of turbine blades into electrical current by means of an electrical generator. Wind energy is abundant, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and mitigates the greenhouse effect if it is used to replace fossil fuel-derived electricity.

So its time for the developed world to put the serious investment needed into developing these resources to not only benefit those 2 billion people mentioned earlier, but in all honesty, every single one of us.

Tags | Alternative Power, Clean Tech, Development