Solidarity Solar Shop: Solidarity Store for Solar Products

Solidarity Solar Shop

Solidarity Store for Solar Products

Each lamp sold in the solidarity solar shop funded another in the Amazon

Light Humanity sold solar lamps, batteries and panels in Spain for camping and travel, and each purchase funded a solar lamp for a family relying on kerosene for light, mainly in the Amazon. In April 2020, at the height of the pandemic, it sent its entire stock there: 7,500 lamps.

  • What it is: the online shop for solidarity solar products that Light Humanity created in Spain.
  • What it sold: the Solar Cube lamp, the Solar Bank battery with light and the Solar Folder folding panel, individually or in packs.
  • Where: at lighthumanity.org, for travellers in Spain and Europe; the second lamp went mainly to the Brazilian Amazon.
  • With whom: it was driven by Eugenio García-Calderón Huerta, founder of Light Humanity; in 2021 Bodegas Ramón Bilbao joined in.
  • Result: in 2021, the shop said it had brought light “to more than 10,000 people in the Amazon” thanks to purchases.
  • What came next: rooftop panels and remote self-consumption with Comunidad Solar, and solar loans with Solar Crowd.
A hiker walks through a fern forest with the Solar Folder panel hanging from her backpack
The Solar Folder panel, one of the shop's solar products, designed for outings. Photo: Light Humanity
The Solar Cube solidarity solar lamp, lit on a rock on a riverbank
The Solar Cube, the shop's lamp: each unit sold funded another. Photo: Light Humanity
Two people read inside a tent by the light of a Solar Cube lamp
Reading while camping, with the Solar Cube on a bottle. Photo: Light Humanity
Two children have dinner at night by the light of a Solar Cube solar lamp
Two children have dinner by the light of a Solar Cube, in the video “Light for Humanity, an online shop for solar products with a mission” (2020). Image: Light Humanity (YouTube)
Vídeo: Light for Humanity, an online shop for solar products with a mission
“Light for Humanity, an online shop for solar products with a mission”, the video about the solidarity solar shop, published in May 2020. Video: Light Humanity (YouTube, Light Humanity channel)

Kerosene lamps in the Amazon: the problem the shop wanted to snuff out

In autumn 2018, Eugenio García-Calderón arrived in Breves, in the Brazilian state of Pará, with 40 solar lamps for as many families who lit their homes with kerosene, according to Yoigo's special feature “Pienso, luego actúo” in El País.

  • The problem: in 2022, according to IEMA, nearly a million people were living without electricity in the Brazilian Amazon, more than 400,000 of them in Pará, the state where Breves is located.
  • Breves: about 50,000 people there were living without electricity when Light Humanity announced its second distribution campaign, in May 2019 (Energías Renovables).
  • Health: kerosene smoke causes serious respiratory diseases (Lenovo Blog).
  • The saving: each solar lamp avoids burning up to 156 litres of fuel a year, that is, up to 3 litres of diesel a week (FAQ).
A woman and a child in the Amazon, at night, beside a kerosene lamp
A family on the banks of the Amazon lights their home with a kerosene lamp. Photo: Light Humanity, courtesy of El País
Four children smile and hold up yellow solar lamps in front of a wooden house
Children with solar lamps, in MAPFRE's report on Light Humanity and the Amazon (2021). Image: MAPFRE

From the solar bicycle to the 2019 “Solar Solidarity Lamp”

After crossing Spain on a solar bicycle against the sun tax (Solar Pedalling), García-Calderón wanted to make the bike's panel “in miniature”, with a battery and an LED light, as he explained in the video for Yoigo's special feature in El País.

Eugenio García-Calderón rides a solar bicycle with a trailer of panels past a wind farm
The solar bicycle on which García-Calderón travelled around Spain in 2018: its panel inspired the idea for the lamp. Photo: Light Humanity, courtesy of El País
Solar Folder panel, Solar Bank battery and Solar Cube lamp on the grass
The bike's panel, “in miniature”: Solar Folder, Solar Bank and Solar Cube. Image: El País (Pienso, luego actúo, by Yoigo)
  • January 2019: Light Humanity's YouTube channel presents “the new Solar Solidarity Lamp”, for camping, travel and weekends away.
  • The rule: one solar lamp donated to a family without electricity for every lamp sold at lighthumanity.org (Energías Renovables, May 2019).
  • The slogan: “Share the Sun”, to bring together the energy transition and the fight against energy poverty.

“1 for you = 1 for a family”: how the solidarity solar shop worked

Anyone buying a lamp was “in fact” buying two: one for home and another for a family without electricity (FAQ, 2020), mainly in the Light of the Amazon project. Over time, that second lamp stopped being a gift.

  • Batteries and panels: cost four times as much to manufacture, but each purchase still funded a lamp.
  • A solidarity code: each buyer received a certificate showing where their aid had been delivered.
  • From gift to microcredit: “families did not value the device they were given”, García-Calderón explained to the Lenovo Blog; from then on, each sale helped a family pay for its lamp month by month.
  • The money cycle: it took up to two years to manufacture, distribute and recover what had been lent; sales in Spain covered that gap.
“Each purchase of a solar product finances a loan so that a family in the Amazon can have access to energy” — Eugenio García-Calderón Huerta, founder of Light Humanity (Lenovo Blog)

Solar Cube, Solar Bank and Solar Folder: the shop's solar products

They were small products, for a backpack, a bicycle or a van. This is how the website described them in 2020:

  • Solar Cube: a lamp weighing 79 grams and measuring 8 × 8 × 3 cm (2020 product page); one day of sun gives up to 8 hours of light. It cost €24 in 2021 (La Gaceta del Vino).
  • Solar Bank: a 10,000 mAh power bank with light: two phone charges or 50 hours of lighting (2020 product page).
  • Solar Folder: a 10 W folding solar panel weighing 290 grams; it charges a phone in as little as 2 hours in the sun (2020 product page).
  • The packs: three Solar Cubes; the “Eco-friendly Solar Pack”, with Solar Bank and Solar Folder; or all three products together.
A woman charges her phone with the Solar Folder solar panel attached to her backpack
Solar Folder: 10 W and 290 grams to charge your phone in the sun. Photo: Light Humanity
The Solar Folder folding solar panel, on a bicycle's panniers, charges a phone
The Solar Folder also travelled by bicycle. Photo: Light Humanity
A hand hangs the lit Solar Cube solar lamp from the roof of a tent
The Solar Cube, hanging in a tent. Photo: Light Humanity
The Solar Folder panel in its cardboard box: “4 hours of sun = 100% charge”
The Solar Folder's plastic-free cardboard packaging. Photo: Light Humanity

Manufacturing: plastic-free packaging, repairs and a “second life” plan

The shop also explained how its solar products were made (ethical manufacturing):

  • Where they were made: in two factories in Shenzhen (China), with CE and RoHS certification (FAQ).
  • Materials: 100% plastic-free packaging; the Solar Bank casing was at one point made with wheat-straw bioplastic (Eco-friendly Solar Pack).
  • Long life: repairs, battery replacement once it had lost half its capacity and a “second life” plan for used products.

7,500 solar lamps from the shop, bound for the Amazon in the middle of the pandemic

In April 2020, with the coronavirus spreading, Light Humanity had a container with 7,500 solar lamps on its way, “all the stock available in the online shop”, to be distributed first among those most vulnerable to the virus, Yoigo's special feature in El País reported.

  • The plan: to distribute them from boats and with megaphones, to avoid infections, and to defer families' payments.
  • Local network: 17 distribution points, the “light multipliers”, most of them run by women (Lenovo Blog); in Breves, Tatiana's shop was selling almost 200 lamps a month, according to El País.
  • Tally in January 2021: more than 7,000 lamps delivered to the Amazon and about 3,000 already distributed, “light for more than 20,000 people”, according to García-Calderón.

Ramón Bilbao, Yoigo and laSexta: the solidarity shop reaches more people

In May 2021, Bodegas Ramón Bilbao chose Light Humanity to launch its campaign “Discovering Unique Dreams”, La Gaceta del Vino reported.

  • Wine and light: a pack with two bottles of Ramón Bilbao Reserva 2015 and a solar lamp, for €27.50; for every pack, the winery pledged to send another lamp to the Amazon.
  • Pienso, Luego Actúo: Yoigo's platform told the story in El País (2020), and in 2021 Emprendimientos Hoy called buying its solar packs “an exchange with positive impact”.
  • Purchases with impact: in 2021, MAPFRE cited the “Solar and Solidarity Shop” alongside the “Offset Your Footprint” programme.
  • In other shops: Light Humanity invited retailers to sell its products, as the lighting shop Byverd Leds did with its packs (product page).
Vídeo: La Sexta Noticias. Spanish company finances solar lamps in the Amazon
“Spanish company funds solar lamps in the Amazon”, the laSexta Noticias piece that Light Humanity uploaded to its channel in January 2020. Video: laSexta Noticias / Light Humanity (YouTube)

After the shop: self-consumption, Comunidad Solar and Solar Crowd

In 2021, García-Calderón explained that they had created the shop because the Amazon project needed an “economic boost from outside” (Lenovo Blog). By 2023, the shop no longer sold only lamps: it offered rooftop panels and remote self-consumption with Comunidad Solar, and solar loans on Solar Crowd (shop website).

  • A different rule: for each purchase, the shop no longer promised a lamp, but to allocate “part of the profit to the fight against energy poverty”, according to the same page.

From the Cañada Real to a solar boat: other Light Humanity projects

  • Back in Madrid: by 2021, Light Humanity was already driving Cañada Solar, solar energy for the Cañada Real (La Gaceta del Vino).
  • On the river: in 2021, García-Calderón wanted to develop a prototype solar boat for the Amazon (Lenovo Blog).
  • The tally: by 2023, Light Humanity's energy had reached the Cañada Real, Sagunto, Toledo and shelters in Madrid, and its founder put the number of beneficiaries “from 2017 to today” at 40,000 (Xataka).

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