The concept product has been developed as part of a masters thesis. It was then decided that the product would be part of Ericsson's contribution to its partnership with Columbia University's Earth Institute and the Millennium Villages project, a project aiming to lift rural African communities out of extreme poverty.

Mats Pellbäck Scharp, one of the co-sponsors and director of Environment and Supplier Quality Assurance at Sony Ericsson says mobile phones contribute to the economic development in the developing world, and that the biggest problem in rural areas is charging the phone. "People often have a phone but need to walk for miles to get it charged," he says.

Jens Malmodin is a research engineer at Ericsson Research and supervised the thesis work. During his more than 10 years at Ericsson, he has been involved in sustainability issues such as energy consumption and life-cycle assessment. "The existing solutions we looked into were neither efficient nor sustainable," Malmodin says. "We wanted a simple, robust, easy-to-use and sustainable solution able to charge several mobiles in parallel."

The Ericsson Village Solar Charger is built on standard components and can be used for all types of mobiles. It uses a 0.7 sq m solar panel connected to a rack where eight mobiles can be charged at the same time. And due to the inclusion of a 12-volt lead-acid battery, charging is also possible at night. The charger is intended for use in villages almost anywhere in the world. However, solar conditions in Africa and India were used when dimensioning the charger, which is capable of recharging at least 30 mobile phone batteries a day, all year round. The charger can also be used for other types of load, such as powering computers, lights or TV sets.

"When electricity becomes available and the Village Solar Charger is not needed any more, it can be moved to another village and used there," Malmodin says. 

Nina Lövehagen, a senior research engineer at Ericsson Research specializing in support and communication, got involved in the work when it was decided that the Village Solar Charger would be part of the Millennium Villages project.

"We quickly produced a few units of the Village Solar Charger, and now 12 of them have been shipped to the African Millennium Villages," she says.

The Village Solar Charger is on display in the Green Corridor, part of the Customer Experience Center in Kista, Stockholm, where Ericsson showcases its environmental initiatives for customers.