Dear solar friends,

Why hasn’t solar thermal taken off?

This question has been with us every day since we started Lytefire.

I say it hasn’t taken off, because we don’t see solar concentrators everywhere, yet.
Yes, there are many solar cookers, and yes, there are a few very large power plants concentrating sunlight to produce electricity, but… the entrepreneurs and DIYers using Lytefire: We are still very very few.

Where do we go from here?

I once heard that a new technology can only grow if it can work as a luxury product, or a military good. It’s true that it is hard to produce cheaply, when you produce little. But does everything need to be industrialized to reach people?

What would happen, if we had the option to create high-temperature, efficient, powerful energy to power our needs, ourselves?
This was the idea behind the Lytefire design: Something that can be built locally, maintained by the people themselves. Something that creates real energy independence!

This idea of a human-scale tech that, paired with entrepreneurship, could spread differently from other technologies. And not only tackle the innovation issue, but also the social, political, climate and economic issues surrounding energy. This is what we have been working for over the last 14 years. We want to prove that not only renewable energy access can be solved, it can be solved in a way that empowers people.

So, in the background, since a few months, we have been working on a project to capture and bundle all the knowledge and experience around Lytefire for the next generation of entrepreneurs and DIYers.

And these days we are happy to release the very first results of this ongoing work!

Through this newsletter, we are releasing the interview we did with the Arise and Shine Group in Kenya, located in Salgaa town, about halfway between Nairobi and Lake Victoria.

This is one of the groups that we were able to equip, train and incubate thanks to the support of the Jansen PrimeSteps foundation. For us, their persistence and success in this tough climate has meant a lot over the last months! Get to know them for yourself:

Also, I myself had to get in front of the camera 🙂 and we will start to release a few clips from that session in the coming days as well.
The first post is already out on LinkedIn here, and on Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon. More to come in the coming days, so follow us!

We are working on finding the right format for all this knowledge to put it together into a new package. We are planning to crowdfund around that to accelerate things. These days we are also reviewing our DIY construction plans, how we provide support at-distance, as well as how we do our humanitarian work with our NGO clients and partners. Wherever we can do to enable more people with Lytefire, we want to do it!

So it’s a good moment if you have feedback or questions about Lytefire!

In the end, I think that solar thermal hasn’t taken off because nobody has made it known enough, appealing enough, easy enough, powerful enough. The Lytefire is already powerful. We can make it easier. And eventually, we’ll get the word out!

Have a great rest of the day,
Urs

-- 
Urs Riggebach

Co-Founder, Head of Ops & Board Chair
Visit our website | Lytefire

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