Let’s take a trip to the beautiful mountain villages of Motete in Butha-Buthe and in Thaba-Tseka. For a long time, these places had no electricity. People used candles for light, chopped firewood to cook, and walked long distances just to charge their phones. But that all changed when the National University of Lesotho (NUL) Energy Research Centre (ERC) showed up…with a plan. They were bringing in something called mini-grids, powered by the sun.
These mini-grids now light up over 110 homes in Motete and more than 75 in Linakaneng. That means families can cook, study, listen to the radio, and charge phones, all from clean energy.
“It cost us over M14 million to make it happen,” says Mr. Tšita Molapo, a physics lecturer at NUL and one of the people leading the project. “It wasn’t easy. These villages are very remote, and we were introducing high-tech systems in places that never had anything like this before.”
Luckily, NUL wasn’t working alone. The mini-grids were funded by Innovate UK, and NUL teamed up with Smart Villages from the UK, Gram Oorja from India, and MOSCET from Lesotho. You could say it was a worldwide team effort to help Lesotho’s mountains shine.
So how does the system actually work?
Well, it all starts with the sun. Big steel structures with solar panels are installed out in open areas where they can soak up all that beautiful sunshine. When sunlight hits the panels, something clever happens inside…tiny particles of light (called photons) knock around electrons inside the solar cells. This produces direct current (DC) electricity.
Now, DC electricity isn’t quite what most home appliances need. Before it reaches the houses, the electricity goes through something called an inverter, which turns it into alternating current (AC), the kind that lights your bulb and powers your fridge.
But what if no one is using the electricity during the day? No problem. The system includes batteries, which are like giant power banks. Any electricity that isn’t used right away is stored in these batteries for use at night, when people are home and using lights, charging phones, or watching TV.
Each village has a community committee that runs the system. Villagers don’t need fancy apps or bank cards. They just go to a local committee member with a laptop, buy electricity units for M5.00 per unit, and boom! The lights come on at home. No long queues, no complications.
“It’s something we never even dreamed about before NUL came knocking on our doors,” says Mr. Letšohla Mapentjane, one of the community leaders in Motete.
But just when things were about to get moving, guess what happened?
Covid-19 hit!
Everything stopped. Roads were closed. Moving equipment into the mountains? Forget it. For a while, people feared the project was gone for good.
But like we say in Sesotho, sesa-feleng se a hlola, everything comes to an end.
And sure enough, when Covid restrictions lifted, the project came back to life. The NUL team returned with their tools and technology, and in just a few months, homes began to glow at night. Radios played. Phones charged. Children studied under real lights for the first time.
“To say it was tough would be putting it lightly,” Mapentjane laughs. “None of us knew a thing about mini-grids when we started. But we were ready to learn. And with help from the NUL team and their international and local partners, we made it happen.”
Now here’s the really cool part. NUL scientists can monitor the whole system from their phones.
Each mini-grid has a smart little device called a data logger. It watches everything happening in the system, how much energy the panels are collecting, how full the batteries are and so on. All this info is sent through the internet to NUL scientists, who can check the system from their laptops or phones, whether they’re sitting at the university or travelling abroad.
They know, from miles away, when something ain’t going right.
Most of the power use happens in the evening. That’s when people switch on their lights, charge phones, or run small appliances. During the day, the sun does its job, filling up the batteries and preparing the system for the busy night ahead, even while sharing some power to day users.
Both Motete and Linakaneng now take full ownership of their mini-grids. The villagers handle the money, check the systems, and even teach each other how to use power wisely.
And just like that, these mountain communities are no longer left behind. They’re part of a global energy shift, one where power doesn’t come from burning coal or diesel, but from the sun above and science on the ground.
“As the world moves toward clean energy,” says Mr. Molapo, “these villages are leading the way. And that’s something we’re proud to be part of.”
