When strips of solar panels arrived in his remote village in northeast Zambia, Damaseke Mwale saw an opportunity. He bought land, built a house and set up businesses including a grocery store and a hall to charge people to watch football matches. “From there, that’s where my life changed,” Mwale, 41, said as he sat in his living room next door to his small store. Even his children’s school grades improved because they were able to study at night, he said. Mwale is one of the early beneficiaries of a technology that promises to electrify a continent that’s home to more than 80% of the world’s 680 million people who live without power.
