Sunny outlook for portable power

During the past ten years, Nokia has been comfortably on track to reducing the environmental impact of its products by 50 per cent. Materials and energy consumption are two of the largest factors affecting the environment.

The Portable Solar Charger is part of a project where Nokia is exploring the charging opportunities for people that do not have access to the electricity grid. Kenya and Nigeria provide the perfect opportunity for testing this solution as recent World Bank reports indicate that only 16 and 51 per cent of Kenyans and Nigerians respectively had regular access to electricity between 2007 and 2011.

Thousands of people in Nigeria and Kenya are set to pilot the Solar Charger. The pilot will be studied to see the product’s business potential, usage patterns, the environmental and social impacts, and whether it could be introduced for full commercial production.

“Sales of the Solar Charger will start this week, and we’re very excited to see what the public response will be,” says Petteri Alinikula, from Nokia’s Sustainability team.

“The Nokia Solar Charger is the first step to solving a fundamental problem; hundreds of millions Nokia product users do not have electricity easily available in their daily surroundings to charge their products.”

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