Africa has ‘unlimited’ solar potential. Off-grid power could help light up the continent

Globally, more than 660 million people still lack access to electricity — and 85% of them reside in sub-Saharan Africa.

Washikala Malango was one of these people.

Malango was born and raised in Baraka, a village on the shores of a vast lake in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). His off-grid childhood was not particularly unusual: even today, around 78% of the population in the country has no access to electricity, according to the World Bank .

He recalls spending mornings at school and afternoons playing soccer in the streets, and at dusk, returning home to share the light of a kerosene lamp in the kitchen, where his mother prepared dinner.

There was no reading or studying in the evening: “We wouldn’t even buy enough kerosene to even make enough light (to last) until 9 or 10 p