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Cameroon is one of the African countries with huge renewable energy potentials especially the rural areas with renewable energy resources like solar, hydropower, wind as well as biomass which could be used to provide basic modern energy services for rural development and poverty alleviation. This idea of improving on the human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities can be termed a Green Economy. Inspite of these enormous potentials, rural areas in Cameroon are under-served with basic renewable energy services. It was due to this energy scarcity that a Renewable Energy Program called Cameroon Rural Energy Solutions was initiated by a young Cameroonian who is a social entrepreneur with a sound knowledge in Renewable Energy Technologies basically solar and micro hydropower with partners from the USA and Germany.

During four years of operation, we have successfully installed and owned 15 personal independent solar systems with the capacity of 160 to 500w in the rural areas of the South West, North West, Littoral and Western regions of Cameroon. Beside this, more than 30 solar energy systems have also been installed for other private individual households for their personal uses.

Again, 5 community micro hydropower plants have been constructed with the collaboration of some councils such as Wabane, Menji councils and different communities with the capacity of 5 to 20kw as well as 2 Pico-hydro power plants of 2 and 4kw.

The lesson learned in these projects is that, there are very sustainable because maintenance of all solar energy systems is either done by telephones or by simply buying and replacing spare parts when need arise while local technicians are trained in simple techniques of micro hydro power management, operation and maintenance. Among the two systems mentioned above, solar energy is more stable compared to micro hydropower even though both systems really function well because of good mechanism put in place for the sustainability of the projects in the installed rural areas.