Conergy Expands Impact as Chief Storytelling Sponsor for Empowered by Light

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Global solar Conergy announces its support of the Empowered By Light Foundation, a high-impact non profit bringing clean, reliable solar power to key communities throughout the developing world. To further Empowered By Light in its quest to bring clean energy solutions to communities around the world, Conergy is donating funds, market-specific knowledge, and media resources to the nonprofit.

“Conergy’s mission is to preserve the planet and power the world, so we could not be happier to support the high-social-impact projects that Empowered By Light brings to life as the cornerstone of our Corporate Social Responsibility efforts,” said Andrew de Pass, CEO of Conergy. “Installing off-grid solar on a school in the Congo and Amazon is high-impact work that simply cannot be financed the same way we finance solar projects in more mature solar markets. We look forward to helping these markets develop economically and mature to the point where we can develop and finance solar projects by more traditional methods and all profit from it.”

Conergy, which has 18 years of experience developing, financing, constructing and managing commercial and utility-scale solar projects in 22 countries over six continents, adds its support of Empowered by Light to the company’s other Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts. These include Conergy’s recently launched Future Solar Leaders Program, which took ten of the most promising environmental leaders from U.S. university campuses to Paris for COP21, and the Solar Education Initiative, supporting employees in presenting solar at their children’s elementary schools. These programs support the continued proliferation of solar globally by bringing the brightest young people solar industry exposure.

As part of its support to Empowered by Light, Conergy is providing cutting-edge storytelling resources including the production of high-quality virtual-reality videos. Virtual reality — the type of video used in video games — is known to foster greater empathy than regular videos are able to. These emotionally engaging videos will allow viewers to travel to the project sites to better understand communities and impact.

“We could not be more grateful for the generous support of Conergy,” said Alyssa Newman, Executive Director of Empowered by Light. “Our projects for 2016 include solar microgrids for schools and villages in Zambia, but we’re also expanding to several new countries, with projects in areas that serve as the remaining lungs of the earth like the Congo and the Amazon. Conergy’s support will allow us to share these projects in our upcoming education campaign, and expand our project reach.”

Conergy and Empowered by Light will be working closely with StoryUp, an independent, VR native media company. Together, they will create visually compelling narratives to share the stories of communities with little to no access to clean, safe, and affordable electricity.

Other supporters of Empowered by Light include Sungevity, the Cliff Family Foundation, the Rex Foundation and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.