Grameen Shakti (GS) is a not-for-profit company in Bangladesh established in 1996 to promote, develop and popularize renewable energy technologies in remote, rural areas of Bangladesh. It is a part of the Grameen family founded to take the Grameen Bank objective of alleviating poverty for the extreme poor through microcredit. Grameen Shakti into one of the largest and fastest-growing renewable energy companies in the world. But attempts to market photovoltaic solar home systems on affordable terms initially faced numerous obstacles. No enabling environment existed for spreading renewable energy technologies in rural areas. People had no awareness, costs were high, technical knowledge was low, and there was no infrastructure. But GS had to create goodwill and gain the trust of the rural people. GS trained our engineers to be ‘social engineers’ who went from door-to-door to demonstrate the effectiveness of renewable energy. GS trained local youth as technicians to ensure that people would have efficient and free after-sales service right on their doorstep. GS is working hard to make Bangladesh will become a role model for 1.6 billion energy-starved people all over the world and becoming one of the world’s first “solar nations”.
Grameen Shakti is the leading company on renewable energy in Bangladesh and fast growing solar sector company in the world. As of December 2010 Grameen Shakti has installed 25MWp solar system. Beside these, Grameen Shakti have installed solar mobile charging van, Solar lighting Boat, Solar emergency Lighting, Solar water Purifier, solar power telecom systems, Off grid power supply system and also nowadays they are encouraging urban people to use hybrid solar- National grid system with low price. Grameen Shakti receives many international awards. Among them they have win Ashden Award in 2006 and 2008.
Grameen Shakti has been honoured with a Right Livelihood Award for its work, and has also won two Ashden Awards, in 2006 and 2008.
Read more about this topic: Grameen Family Of Organizations