Greater than 30 years in the past, within the mountain village of Mbem in northwest Cameroon, the moon and stars within the evening sky have been the one mild younger Jude Numfor knew after the sundown. Electrical energy had not but reached his rural group.
“There was one individual within the village with a petroleum generator and a small tv,” Numfor says. “When he turned it on, all the youngsters would run to his home and peep by means of the window.”
That reminiscence grew to become the spark for Numfor’s mission: to convey electrical energy to rural communities like his hometown. To perform his purpose, in 2006 he cofounded Wi-fi Gentle and Energy, since renamed Renewable Energy Innovators Cameroon, and he serves as its CEO.
REI Cameroon designs, installs, and maintains photo voltaic minigrids for rural electrification. The minigrids use photovoltaic expertise and battery-energy storage methods to generate electrical energy at 50 hertz. The electrical energy is distributed by means of smart meters.
In 2017 the corporate obtained a grant from IEEE Smart Village to fund the enlargement of REI’s minigrid operations and refine its enterprise mannequin. Good Village helps projects and organizations bringing electrical energy and academic and employment alternatives to distant communities worldwide. This system is supported by IEEE societies and donations to the IEEE Foundation.
The partnership has led to a collaboration creating open source metering, a free, community-driven means of monitoring vitality utilization. In contrast to proprietary utility meters, the system permits customers, researchers, and utilities to view, customise, and confirm how information is collected, making certain transparency in billing, consumption monitoring, and grid administration.
Good Village’s help has been pivotal, Numfor says: “It’s not nearly cash. We share concepts, we get recommendation, and we’ve made buddies. Entrepreneurship is lonely, however with the [Smart Village] group, it’s completely different.”
From teenage tinkerer to entrepreneur
Numfor’s first expertise of life with electrical energy was in 2001, after transferring in with a missionary household within the small village of Allat. They used solar panels to energy their complete residence—an unimaginable luxurious in Mbem. “I may watch TV, eat ice cream, and activate lights,” he says. “It made me want my brothers in Mbem had the identical alternative.”
Numfor’s curiosity about electrical energy was ignited when a motion-sensor photo voltaic mild within the household’s residence stopped working. He tinkered with the gadget to seek out out why. “My missionary household advised me to play with it like a toy,” he says, laughingly. “I changed the useless battery with a motorcycle battery and was capable of convey the facility again for the evening.”
Jude Numfor [right] testing a chargeable photo voltaic lantern, which aimed to interchange hazardous kerosene lamps—identified domestically as “bush lamps.”REI Cameroon
His missionary mother and father inspired Numfor to check expertise and engineering on his personal, as not one of the nation’s universities provided solar energy academic packages on the time. They constructed him a library and stocked it with books on engineering, administration, and entrepreneurship.
In 2006, armed together with his new information, Numfor launched Wi-fi Gentle and Energy with a good friend, Ludwig Teichgraber. The nonprofit aimed to interchange hazardous kerosene lamps—identified domestically as “bush lamps”—with rechargeable photo voltaic lanterns.
These photo voltaic lanterns—known as “mild packs”—have been constructed domestically by Numfor and a staff of 11 younger Cameroonians utilizing PVC pipes, nickel-metal hydride batteries, and LED bulbs. Households rented the lamps for a small price, swapping discharged lamps for absolutely charged ones at solar-powered charging kiosks after they ran out of energy. The kiosks then recharged the depleted lamps, making them obtainable for the following swap. “The photo voltaic lantern was safer and cleaner, plus it gave kids an opportunity to learn at evening,” Numfor explains. “Folks liked them.”
Between 2006 and 2010, his staff replicated the mannequin throughout a number of villages. However when the worldwide monetary disaster hit in 2008, donor help dwindled, forcing the group to evolve. “We pivoted from being an NGO to a industrial enterprise,” he says. “That’s how REI was born.”
Constructing photo voltaic minigrids to serve group wants
The brand new firm’s purpose was to maneuver away from the lanterns and towards full electrification of communities. Villagers’ aspirations modified, Numfor says, as they now needed to energy their TVs, music methods, and mobile phones. In response, in 2010, REI developed one of many first photo voltaic minigrids in West Africa. Utilizing domestically procured parts, the prototype provided regular energy to 6 households. The minigrid system used 12 123-watt photo voltaic photovoltaic panels manufactured by Sharp, 16 12-volt 100 ampere-hour automated acquire management lead acid batteries, and a Xantrex cost controller and inverter. Regionally sourced picket mild poles have been erected to distribute electrical energy all through the village. REI charged every household a price for the electrical energy.
“It was a product-market-fit second,” Numfor says. “Folks instantly requested, ‘When can we get this, too?’” The word-of-mouth, grassroots progress caught the eye of worldwide companions. Numfor related with Good Village and in 2017, REI Cameroon obtained its first seed grant from this system.
With that funding, Numfor was capable of develop organically and appeal to extra grants, together with one from the U.S. Trade Development Agency (USTDA), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. REI has since expanded to 6 villages, offering energy to greater than 1,000 households and companies. With a devoted staff of 16 folks, the corporate operates in a number of areas of the nation, every with distinctive terrain, languages, and cultural dynamics.
“It wasn’t simple,” he acknowledges. “I’m not a tutorial individual—I needed to study the whole lot by doing. [Smart Village] helped me construction the challenge and develop as an entrepreneur.”
At this time, Numfor pays it ahead by sharing his Good Village expertise and mentoring new entrepreneurs.
Launching a coalition for good metering
Minigrids can’t function effectively with out clarifying working guidelines to make sure high quality service necessities and client safety, whereas additionally enabling dependable and efficient monitoring of the system, Numfor says. “We have to know the way energy is getting used, detect issues early, and handle the minigrid from a distance,” he explains.
Present industrial smart-meter suppliers supply restricted and proprietary options. One main supplier left the market, making their expertise infrastructure out of date. “It’s dangerous for a whole sector to rely upon just a few corporations for such a essential expertise,” Numfor says.
In 2025, with the assistance of the Good Village technical group, Numfor convened a consortium of open-source energy advocates, together with the Africa Mini-Grid Developers Association, EnAccess, Energy IOT, and NESL. The purpose was to develop an open good metering system that’s accessible, clear, and sustainable for all vitality suppliers.
“These organizations are collaborating as Open Advanced Metering Infrastructure [OpenAMI], which is about giving management again to the individuals who ship the vitality,” he says.
Scaling for affect
Numfor’s ardour has grown from bringing mild to native rural communities to bringing mild to his whole nation. Simply 54 % of Cameroon’s residents have entry to electrical energy, based on the International Energy Agency. For Numfor, the problem is not only technological—it’s social and financial as properly. “Electrical energy is crucial enabler of schooling and economic growth at the moment,” he says. “When you’ve got energy, you unlock the whole lot else.”
“Electrical energy modified my life. Now I wish to ensure each little one can develop up with that very same mild.” —Jude Numfor
Throughout the villages the place REI has put in sustainable electrical energy options, small companies are flourishing. Barbershops hum with group chatter, meals distributors can protect perishables, and entrepreneurs run corporations akin to phone-charging stations and small mills. “Some villages even have laundromats now,” Numfor says proudly. “Electrical energy creates jobs and modifications mindsets.”
Nonetheless, it has been a bumpy journey. It wasn’t till 2025 that REI obtained its official authorization (license) from Cameroon’s authorities to supply and distribute electrical energy in off-grid areas utilizing photo voltaic minigrids. This was a significant milestone as a result of REI is without doubt one of the first non-public enterprises within the nation to obtain such authorization. “We have been caught between pilot projects and progress,” he explains. “Our tasks have been profitable, and there was group demand for extra, however to develop, we would have liked buyers who require authorized ensures earlier than committing funds. Now we will scale up and appeal to buyers.”
REI plans to broaden its attain dramatically, starting with 134 new villages recognized by means of a feasibility study supported by the USTDA. Their long-term purpose is to impress 760 villages throughout Cameroon by 2031.
Whereas authorization opens doorways, financing stays certainly one of REI’s largest challenges. “The minigrid area doesn’t appeal to venture capitalists simply,” Numfor notes. “Our return on funding is below 15 %, so it’s not a typical tech startup mannequin. The true return right here is the affect” on the group.
He hopes to draw buyers who perceive that entry to electrical energy drives schooling, health care, and entrepreneurship. “There are folks on the market who wish to make significant change,” he says. “We simply want to attach with them. While you electrify a village, you by no means know who the following innovator shall be. Perhaps it’s one other child like me, wanting by means of a window, dreaming.”
Discovering expert employees is one other problem, Numfor says. To deal with this, REI developed an intensive recruitment and coaching course of. “It used to take years to seek out the suitable folks,” he says. “Now, we will establish who suits our firm tradition inside six months.” Numfor’s spouse, Angela Taliklong, who joined the enterprise in 2010, now oversees administration and human assets.
A brighter Cameroon and past
Numfor provides easy phrases of recommendation to different impact-driven entrepreneurs: Hold transferring.
“One among my errors early on was making an attempt to be excellent,” he says. “I used to be spending time enhancing prototypes as a substitute of accelerating the variety of our challenge installations and scaling what number of communities we may electrify. You will need to preserve momentum. Don’t wait till the whole lot is ideal earlier than you progress ahead.”
That mindset, rooted in resilience and experimentation, has outlined his journey. Rajan Kapur, president of Good Village, says Numfor is a “shining instance” of this system’s imaginative and prescient: “scalable and enduring affect by means of native entrepreneurs, native procurement, and group engagement based mostly on using IEEE expertise in underserved communities.”
With the continuing Smart Village partnership, Numfor is set to convey mild and alternative to each nook of Cameroon, and past. He already has launched REI Nigeria.
“Electrical energy modified my life,” he says. “Now I wish to ensure each little one can develop up with that very same mild.”
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