History

Project History: Our exploratory work on fuel-based lighting began in the early-1990s, leading to the initial field visit in India in 1995 (bootstrapped onto participation in the International Commission on Illumination's session in Deli that year, where only electric lighting was discussed). More field work curing the year 2000 in Asia was made possible thanks to stolen scientific moments during an adventurous honeymoon that spanned Thailand, Bhutan, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Our first funding came in 2001, when the International Energy Agency provided a tiny grant for us to prepare the first estimate the global energy, cost, and carbon burden of electric and off-grid lighting, which we published in 2002 [PDF]. This was followed by a more in-depth treatment in the journal SCIENCE in 2005. We also benefitted from the opportunity to work with two crops of students through Stanford University's Social Entrepreneurship Startup, a joint venture between the engineering, business, and product design schools. Our first meaningful funding came in 2007—after a decade of laying the groundwork—from The Rosenfeld Fund of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley, followed later that year by the a grant from the Global Roundtable on Climate Change to work at the "Millennium Village", Sauri, in Western Kenya. This work enabled the establishment of a vibrant collaboration with Humboldt State University, through with the project embarks on in-depth lab work evaluating product quality, plus more time in the field understanding end-user needs and preferences. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Climate Policy and Techology joined as a new sponsor, engaging the Lumina Project to assist with the Climate Renewable Energy Depoloyment Initiative (Climate REDI) launched by Energy Secretary Chu at the Conference of the Parties 15th meeting in Copenhagen.