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A man stands in front of his solar-home-system in Northern Tanzania.

Tanzania has one of the lowest rates of electrification in the world. Only 10% of the population have access to the electricity grid, and in rural areas only 2% have access, leaving people dependant on increasingly expensive kerosene for lighting. Even in cities like Mwanza in Northern Tanzania where there is grid supply, there is a large backlog of applications for grid connection, and it may take many years to get connected.

There is a huge demand for electricity that the national grid simply cannot meet. The recent arrival of mobile phones and television networks in the rural areas has increased this demand especially as mobile phones are increasing business opportunities, and enabling people in rural areas to keep in touch with family members in the towns and cities.

The increased awareness around solar energy and its benefits has meant that people are increasingly attracted to solar PV. However the upfront cost is a major obstacle to many of the rural poor and there is also the problem of many small shops and electrical businesses offering cheap low, quality PV modules which are made to look like well known good quality brands. These fail after a short time and give solar PV technology a bad name.

Zara Solar Ltd, the leading provider of solar PV in Northern Tanzania, is working hard to overcome these obstacles by helping people identify 'fake' equipment and by providing people with high quality yet affordable solar PV systems. As one customer puts it: "I am very pleased with the lights and radio from the one-panel system I bought from Zara Solar, so I have come back to buy another. Before I came to Zara I had bought a cheap panel from another dealer which did not work, it was a waste of money."

The efforts of Zara Solar is making solar PV attractive to more and more people. As a result sales have been rapidly accelerating. To date, Zara Solar and its sister company Mona-Mwanza Electrical & Electronics, have sold over 3,600 solar PV systems, directly benefiting over 18,000 people and this figure is expected to increase significantly over the coming year.

In order to reach more remote areas, Zara Solar uses a network of trained local technicians that can service their own local customer base as well as providing customers with sufficient training to maintain the system properly once it is installed.

Because of the poor road access, the cost of kerosene for lighting is much higher in the rural areas. For a typical family using 6-9 litre/month this represents a monthly cost of 12,000 to 18,000 Tsh (£4.80 to £7.20), a substantial burden in a region where the minimum employed wage is only 50,000 Tsh (£20) a month. From savings on kerosene alone, Zara Solar customers in the rural areas could easily pay back the cost of a PV system in less than two years if the right financing methods were available.

The use of PV provides significant social benefits for health, welfare and education. In health centres, improved lighting and mobile phone charging are very useful: one centre found that more women came to give birth after kerosene lamps were replaced by PV lighting in the delivery room. Where solar PV is used in schools the students can benefit from better lighting in the evening and the use of some electrical equipment. One of the many organisations caring for street children has used PV-powered TV as one of the ways to make life more attractive off the streets. According to the co-ordinator of Upend Daima family home for street children: "Having electricity for lighting and TV gives a more enjoyable life for the children, its one of the things which encourages them not to go back to the streets."

Several customers of Zara Solar are earning extra income from their solar PV systems, due in part to the UNDP having provided 60% grants to people buying the equipment to set up or support a small business. A number of bars and cafes use their solar PV to operate lights and a TV, attracting more customers and increasing their trade. A novel example is a business producing small fish for use as bait, where the pump to aerate the pond water in the hatching tanks is operated by the solar PV system.

The main limitation on future growth is the availability of consumer finance. Zara Solar is hoping to address this by exploring various micro-finance packages which will give the rural poor the chance to pay back the cost of the system over time.

Ashden Award money will be used to set up service centres in rural areas allowing technicians to buy stock locally instead of travelling to the towns; to pilot a micro-finance scheme and to market solar PV systems more widely.