Sun Exchange workers installing solar panels at Eric Brown’s farm in the Karoo region in August.
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Sun Exchange crowdfunds the installation of panels on schools and farms.
When Abraham Cambridge flew to South Africa in 2014, he was struck by how few solar panels he saw in a sunny country with unreliable electricity. Soon after, he started the Sun Exchange Inc., a company that crowdfunds the installation of panels, eliminating the need for customers to raise the often prohibitive amount of money needed to buy and install equipment.
“You’ve got to put solar panels into locations where you have the most environmental and social impact,” says Cambridge, who’d previously run a panel-installation business in the UK. “That drew me to South Africa, where it’s got fantastic solar radiation and escalating energy issues.” He zeroed in on schools, retirement homes, and shopping malls as potential customers—places that often find solar’s costs prohibitive.