This document presents the work of the University of Michigan, School of Natural
Resources and Environment, 2013‐2014 Masters Project team comprised of Wan‐Ning
Chen, Annelise Lemes, Aditi Moorthy, Lukas Strickland, and Yicong Zhu. Our project was
presented to the University on April 11, 2014 in the “Sustainable Enterprise” category. The
project client was the Solar Electric Light Fund, an international non‐profit organization
based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on the sustainable development of electrification in
the developing world through the construction of renewable energy systems. Additionally,
the team collaborated closely with many other organizations, the most relevant of which
were Ashoka, Innovators for the Public, an international social entrepreneurship network,
and Micama Soley, a Haiti‐based for‐profit enterprise focusing on developing renewable
energy solutions for rural Haitians.
Broadly, the initial goal of our project was to assist an international organization
design and implement a renewable energy project that would bring electricity to rural
inhabitants in the developing world. Although the Solar Electric Light Fund was not our
original client, because of the alignment of our goals with theirs, all parties agreed that a
partnership between our team and that organization would make for a stronger project.
After initiating the partnership with the Solar Electric Light Fund, the first stage of
our project consisted of extensive primary and secondary research that gave us intimate
familiarity with the global energy access challenge, the solar lantern industry, and, more
specifically, with Haiti. Our client facilitated a trip to Haiti during which team members
conducted a socioeconomic survey that highlighted the extent of the energy needs in one of
the world’s poorest countries. It also placed that need in the broader context of other
development challenges, including education, sanitation, healthcare, nutrition, and others.
The second, more substantive stage of our project consisted of applying the
learnings from the research phase to help our client lay the foundation for a grant project
focused on building a self‐sustaining lantern distribution network on Haiti’s particularly
impoverished Central Plateau. With the blessing of the Solar Electric Light Fund, the
Masters Team partnered with local organizations in Haiti, and helped our client build a
business plan and partnership network that should allow them to satisfy the terms of their
grant project while improving the lives of thousands of rural Haitians.
This document presents all phases of our work in four chapters: Chapter I provides
an overview of our primary and secondary research of the global energy access challenge
and the solar lantern industry; Chapter II outlines the project building work that the team
undertook in the latter half of the project; Chapter III critically analyzes the project design
that resulted from stage two of the project; and Chapter IV provides an overview of the
risks that the team perceives for successful project implementation and our
recommendations for overcoming them.