Video features solar power project that is lighting villages in the Amazon forest

The Brazil-based Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) has produced a short video of a project that is giving dozens of remote communities in the Amazon rainforest access to clean, renewable energy. With a $1 million grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the ISA is helping communities in the Xingu Indigenous Park install solar power systems.

The three-year project will provide electricity for 6,000 people in 82 villages, and produce enough energy to power 55 schools, 22 health posts and 10 community centers. As part of the project, 100 men in the Xingu have learned how to install and maintain the solar power systems.

When complete, the Xingu project will be a model for distributed renewable energy systems, such as wind and solar, that could give more communities in the Amazon access to electricity. Globally, 1.2 billion people in developing countries lack access to electricity.