IEEE Smart Village Is Helping to Electrify Rural Cameroon

More than 30 years ago, in the mountain village of Mbem in northwest Cameroon, the moon and stars in the night sky were the only light young Jude Numfor knew after the sunset. Electricity had not yet reached his rural community.“There was one person in the village with a petrol generator and a small television,” Numfor says. “When he turned it on, all the children would run to his house and peep through the window.”That memory became the spark for Numfor’s mission: to bring electricity to rural communities like his hometown. To accomplish his goal, in 2006 he cofounded Wireless Light and Power, since renamed Renewable Energy Innovators Cameroon, and he serves as its CEO.REI Cameroon designs, installs, and maintains solar minigrids for rural electrification. The minigrids use photovoltaic technology and battery-energy storage systems to generate electricity at 50 hertz. The electricity is distributed through smart meters.In 2017 the company received a grant from IEEE Smart Vi