“The school had lost power for about 14 months,” said Edwin. “My goal is to find the people most affected and most marginalized by climate change and focus my efforts there, where they can have the greatest impact,” he said.įor example, a 9 kW solar array paired with batteries now provides reliable electricity to a rural environmental school in Puerto Rico, where the electrical grid infrastructure was destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017. With Sphere One, Edwin is determined to fight these inequities, one project at a time. These communities also tend to lack the resources and opportunities to access clean energy and its benefits. Marginalized and frontline communities disproportionately bear the negative health and economic impacts of fossil fuel pollution and climate change. He quickly realized how gratifying it was to build energy resilience in his community, and he wanted to expand his reach to those that need it the most. It wasn’t until he was hired by a solar installer that his interest in energy was fully rekindled, and he started personally installing solar systems for his friends in the area. In 2008, he landed a maintenance job with the City of Seattle, where he continued to gain experience working with mechanical and electrical systems. After 6 PM we were in darkness.”Īfter he graduated, Edwin spent some time traveling abroad and working in construction and mechanical engineering. “It really showed me the necessity of energy. “I was always trying to fiddle with things to figure out ways to get light,” he said in a recent conversation with Enphase. A naturally curious kid and hands-on learner, Edwin figured out how to create makeshift lights from used batteries and lightbulbs, which first sparked his interest in energy resilience. Growing up in Kenya, he attended boarding schools that had sporadic electricity at best, which often made it impossible for the students to study in the evenings. Edwin knows well what it’s like to live without reliable access to energy.
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