I recently saw saw a short video by Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, on the United Nations Foundation website, that illustrates how electricity can transform the lives of women and reduce poverty. There is no shortage of evidence to show how electricity can reduce the burden of manual labor for women, freeing them to study, start their own businesses, or invest more in their children. There are also many stories of how solar power and efficient stoves contribute to poverty reduction. These methods work, and I’m all for it. But I can’t help but be frustrated at their scale. It’s great to help people, one family at a time. But wouldn’t it be great if hundreds of thousands of people could get electricity, all at once?

Nowhere is the need for electricity greater than in Sub-Saharan Africa. Half a billion Africans live without electricity — more than half of its population of 910 million and a sizeable percentage of the 1.3 billion people without power globally.