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Out of darkness: Solar power sheds a little light on powerless communities

Monday, Aug 12 2013

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Solar in the News
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NBC News

Anna Begay lives on a remote plot of land in the Navajo reservation. To reach her home, you drive through twisting, unmarked trails of dust and mud along the edge of Coalmine Canyon, in northwest Arizona.

A grandmother in her late 80s, Begay lives alone in a traditional, eight-sided house called a hogan. She raises sheep with the help of a nephew and a couple of fast sheepdogs. When the dogs bark, it’s the only sound you will hear for miles.

This far out, it’s too expensive to connect her home to the electric grid. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have electricity.