An electric vehicle powered by the sun? It's not a mirage, but a reality as a Wild Coast eco-lodge proves that electric vehicles are the way to go even in a time of Eskom crisis.

Electricity came late to the remote villages in the Wild Coast area -- late being just this past summer, 2023.

For the longest time, people living in these inaccessible parts of the Eastern Cape have had to make do without electricity fed from the national Eskom grid. This even as universal access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy services is a United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal.

The UN SDG report of July 2022 showed that in 2020 around 77% of the global population who live without electricity are people in sub-Saharan Africa and the majority are people who live in rural areas. The report also warned that "If current trends (of slow progress) continue, only 92% of the world's population will have access to electricity in 2030, leaving 670 million people unserved."

For the people of the village of Nqileni, a community established along the trace of the Wild Coast shoreline, fuel sources have always been wood fires and gas. A government programme introduced about eight years ago aimed to install a micro solar panel attached to a small battery at each homestead. But the system was only adequate to charge a few lights and a cell phone or...