There's something really incredible happening. So there's over a billion people who have no access to energy whatsoever across the world, 620 million of them here in Africa. It costs about 1,500 dollars to connect each household up to the grid. If you are going to wait for it, it takes about nine years, on average, and that feels like a lifetime when you're trying to make that happen. That's kind of unbelievable, and it's also unacceptable. So let's do something about it.
﻿在这个世界上，有一些 不可思议的变化正在发生。 目前全世界有 超过十亿的人用不上电。 其中6200万在非洲。 每户家庭连接电网 所需的费用是1500美元。 如果你想等攒够了钱， 大概平均需要九年时间， 等你成功连上电时， 感觉好像一辈子都快过去了。 这简直是难以置信， 也是无法接受的。 所以，是时候该采取行动了。
The lightbulb comes from this idea that you have an energy system that's made up of the ideas of Tesla and the ideas of Thomas Edison. There was an evolution that said it's not just about the lightbulb, it's about the whole system, the whole energy system that goes with that lightbulb, and what happened in that gilded age was the creation of an industrial system that every country around the world has now started to emulate. So to get to the appliances, you need to have power stations. From power stations, you need to have infrastructure, and that infrastructure takes you to the point of having electricity, and you get to the lightbulbs and the appliances that we all take for granted.
拥有一个能源系统是 电灯泡诞生的前提。 这个发明创意是由特斯拉 和托马斯·爱迪生的理论综合而成的。 这场革命可不仅仅是关于电灯泡， 而是关于整个能源系统， 与电灯泡相适应的整个能源系统。 在镀金时代（美国内战后至一战前）， 美国建立了工业体系。 而如今，世界各国都纷纷效仿。 所以要用上家电，就得有发电站。 要想建设发电站，你需要有基础设施 来帮助你实现通电， 然后你才能用上电灯泡和家用电器。 这一切在我们眼中，都是理所当然的。
But the amazing thing, in a way, is that there's a revolution happening in the villages and towns all around us here in East Africa. And the revolution is an echo of the cell phone revolution. It's wireless, and that revolution is about solar and it's about distributed solar. Photons are wireless, they fall on every rooftop, and they generate enough power to be sufficient for every household need.
但其可贵之处在于，这场革命发生在 东非的农村和乡镇中。 这场革命是对手机革命的回应。 它也是无线的， 是关于分布式太阳能发电的革命。  光子是无线的， 它们洒落在每一个屋顶上，  能产生巨大的电能， 足以满足每个家庭的用电需要。
So that's an incredible thing. There's also a problem with it. Up until now, the technology hasn't been there to make it happen, and the mindset has been that we have to have the grid to provide industrial growth and let countries develop and create jobs and industrialize. So we've gotten ourselves to the point where actually the costs of building these grids and following that pattern of development are really unsustainable. If you add up the deficits that all of the utilities run in Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, you get to a number of 21 billion dollars every year to maintain that system and keep it going. So an extraordinary amount of resources that's been put in to creating a system that ultimately we will have to wait a very long time for, and when it comes, it often doesn't come with sufficient robustness to allow us to go down that path to development. So what a shame.
所以，这是一个极其伟大的革命。  不过有一个问题。 直到现在，这项技术 还未能在东非成功推行， 而我们的理念是，我们必须有电网， 才能促进工业增长， 让各国蓬勃发展，创造更多就业机会， 实现工业化社会。 而我们目前面临的困境是 建造电网以及遵循这种发展模式 所需要的费用之大 实在是难以为继。 如果你把所有在非洲运行的 公共事业的赤字加起来， 再加上撒哈拉以南非洲地区的， 你得到的数字将会是 每年210亿美元， 需要这样一笔巨大的资金 才能维护这个系统继续运行。 因此大量的资源 都已经被投入于建设这个系统， 但结果，这个系统需要我们 等很久才能完全落实， 等到真正建成的那天， 这个体系往往缺乏足够的稳固性， 无法维持国家的持续发展。 这实在是太遗憾了。
But here's what's happening, and here's the opportunity that I think we should all get excited about. So there's a group of companies that have been chipping away at this problem over the last 10 years, and this group of companies have recognized the reality that there's a great big nuclear reactor up there in the sky, and that Africa is more endowed with that solar power that comes from the sky, the sun, than almost any other continent. So the opportunity has come to convert some of that solar power, wireless power, into energy at the household level.
但是也有好消息。 我认为这其中存在着 巨大的机遇等待我们发掘。 那么有一些公司 在过去十年里一直在尝试 一步一步解决这个问题， 这些公司 已经意识到有一个超大型核反应堆 就处于我们头顶上的天空，  而非洲的太阳能资源更是得天独厚， 在非洲，太阳赐予的能量 几乎比任何其他大陆都要多。  因此机会就在于将部分太阳能， 这种无线能源转化为家用电能。
And three things have happened at the same time. First, the costs of solar productivity have come down. So putting a panel on your roof and generating power from it, that cost has absolutely collapsed over the last 30 years, and it's gone down by 95 percent.
在此过程中，还同时发生了三个变化。 一是太阳能发电的成本已经下降了。 因此，在你家屋顶上 安装太阳能板来发电， 这一成本在过去的30年间 已经大幅下降了，  降幅达95％。 
Second, the appliance network. So the group of appliances that we've all gotten used to, we all want and we all need, we all see as part of our everyday lives that give us health and security, those appliances have come down in cost. So if you take the LED lightbulb, for example, a very simple thing, they're now 85 percent less than they were five years ago, and their efficiency, when you compare them to an incandescent bulb, like the lightbulb I showed in the previous slide, is incredible. They give you 10 times the amount of light, and they last 30 times as long.
二是关于家电网络。 这些家用电器我们都已经用习惯了， 它们是我们想要甚至必需的， 被我们视作是日常生活的一部分， 保障了我们的健康和安全， 而那些电器的成本也都下降了。  举一个简单的例子，如果你用LED灯泡， 它们现在的价格比5年前降低了85％。 但如果你把它们的效率 与白炽灯进行比较， 就是我在之前的幻灯片中 展示过的那种灯泡， 你会发现两者有着天壤之别。 LED灯提供的光能是白炽灯的10倍， 而它们的寿命期白炽灯的30倍。
And then the last thing that's happened is of course the cell phone revolution, so we're piggybacking off the cell phone revolution, and we can now make decentralized customers make small payments for bits of equipment and appliances where actually they're now affordable. We can pay them off over a daily or a weekly schedule. So this is an incredible change in the economy that's happening, and it's really opened up something very, very innovative.
最后一件无疑是与手机革命有关， 事实上我们正在 借助手机革命的浪潮， 目前，我们可以让零散客户  为一些设备和家电付小额款项， 实际上他们现在是负担得起的。  我们可以按日或按周分期结清。 这对非洲经济而言 是一个巨大的飞跃。 它的确带来了一些 非常有创意的变化。
So I'm going to introduce you to a lady I met with last week. Her name's Susan. It may not look like it, but Susan is a representative of a $27 billion market. 27 billion dollars is what people like Susan spend every year on cell phone charging, flashlight batteries and kerosene to light their homes. So Susan is a proud owner of a small solar system. It's a kit rather than a planetary thing, so a small solar system, and her small solar system allows her to have a couple of lightbulbs, and she's made this transition, this jump, from kerosene into light. She has four or five lights and a radio. It's fantastic, and she talks about it. She talks about her kids doing homework at night because she has light. I'm not sure what the kids feel about that. She talks about the fact that she can go out at 4am and look after the cows, and she's not so worried, but also, with a little twinkle in her eye, she talks about how light turns her house into a home at night. She's not scared of her own house at night, because it has light in it, and I thought that was amazing.
现在，我要给你们介绍 一位我上周认识的女士。 她叫苏珊。 也许看起来不太像， 但事实上她代表着 价值270亿美元的市场。 无数像苏珊一样的人 每年共计花费270亿美元 在手机充电、 手电筒电池、 以及家用照明的煤油上。 苏珊很自豪，她仿佛拥有了 一个小太阳系来满足她的用电需求。 这是一整套设备而非单件器具， 所以是一个小太阳系， 而她的小太阳系让她 拥有了几个电灯泡， 她实现了从煤油到电灯的跨越。 她拥有四到五个灯和一个收音机。 这真的很棒。 她谈起她改变后的生活。 她说，她的孩子晚上 可以做功课了，因为家里有灯。 虽然我不确定孩子们感觉如何。 但苏珊说她可以凌晨4点 出门去照料奶牛， 而且丝毫不用担心天太黑， 谈到动情处，她眼中 甚至有泪光在闪烁。 她说在晚上，灯光将 冰冷的房子变成温暖的家。 她现在晚上不用再害怕 自己的房子了， 因为家里有灯，这真的很棒。
So Susan does something that many customers of these companies that I talked about do, and she forces us to innovate. She challenges companies, saying, "I've got the radio and the lights. You know what? I'd like a TV. I'd like to entertain, educate me and my kids. And then I would like to have some hair clippers for my kids, you know, to cut my kids' hair, and I'd love to have a fridge. And she's coined something that the energy world is really hungry to do. The idea that she's coined is the energy ladder. It starts, again, with a lightbulb. Right? And the lightbulb is an idea that we can get our kids to do homework, and very cheap, about five dollars, and we can get it distributed. But then let's go up from there. This is the kit that Susan has: four lightbulbs, radio, maybe a little flashlight, a little solar panel on the roof. And then let's go up again. We can get maybe at about 500 dollars, the previous kit was maybe $150, again, paid for over time, two years to pay it all off, you can get the TV, so the lightbulbs and the TV.
苏珊做了一些事情， 和我提到的公司的顾客 做的事情不谋而合， 她迫使我们去创新。 她给公司提出挑战， 说：“我已经有收音机和灯了。 但我还想要一台电视机。 我想要丰富娱乐生活， 想通过电视自学，并教育孩子。 其次，为了我的孩子考虑， 我还想要几个理发器， 我得替孩子理发， 此外我还很想有一个冰箱。” 她创造了一些 能源行业迫切希望实现的事情。 她提出的是“能源阶梯”的想法。 这次还是从一个灯泡开始。 灯泡只是一个初步想法， 它让我们的孩子能够在家做功课， 而且很便宜，大概只要五美元， 我们可以分发灯泡。 但我们要从更高的层次看。 这是苏珊所拥有的： 四个灯泡，一个收音机， 也许还有一个小手电筒， 还有屋顶上的一个小太阳能电池板。 我们再上一层。 这一套大概还需要500美元， 而之前拥有的全部家电配件 总价值约150美元， 这次也是分期付款， 两年内全部付清， 你就可以拿到电视， 那么这时就拥有了灯泡和电视。
And you start to ask yourself, "So where is this headed?" Is this headed here, where we can have distributed systems with the right infrastructure to provide power for our hospitals and our schools? And really how far can this go? And this is the mindset shift that I think is really exciting. How far can we go? Could it get up to here? You know, this is the conceptual design for one of the world's biggest factories, designed to be fully solar-powered and fully off grid. Maybe we can get that.
于是你开始问自己， “这一理念将指引我们走向何方？” 这是否会  让我们可以拥有分布式系统， 配备有合适的基础设施， 为我们的医院和学校来提供电力？ 这真的能帮助我们实现这些吗？ 不过这种心态上的转变 真的很鼓舞人心。 我们到底能走多远？ 这种理念真的能奏效吗？ 要知道，这一概念设计 是来自于世界上最大的工厂之一， 旨在实现完全依靠 太阳能供电的离网型照明。 也许我们是可以做到的。 
So there's a generation of these companies that are out there doing this work and creating thousands of jobs, creating, selling, tens of thousands of these solar systems, so bringing tens of thousands of families into light, and tackling that big $1 billion problem that I talked about at the beginning, and really innovating. And what they're doing is, they're not only energy companies, they're also credit finance companies, so they're bringing people into an economy. They're retail companies, so they're taking products out to people in the connecting markets. And they're appliance companies, so they're developing extraordinary products that are very efficient and very cheap.
确实有这样一群公司 在坚持朝着这个方向努力， 创造了数以千计的工作机会， 制造并销售了数以万计的 这种太阳能发电系统， 让无数家庭用上电灯， 并正在解决我之前提过的 那个10亿美元的大问题。 它们才是真的在创新。  此外，它们的业务范围很广， 不仅仅是能源公司， 还是信贷财务公司，  带人们参与进经济社会中。 它们还是零售公司， 把产品销售给中介市场的客户。 它们还是家电公司， 正在研发卓越的、 高效而又廉价的产品。
So an extraordinary thing is happening out there that's worth recognizing. And where does it take us? From a governmental perspective, from a social perspective, it takes us out to two really big goals. We aspire towards energy access for everybody, and we aspire towards a fully-functioning low-carbon economy. And we're getting to the point where we're seeing the fully-functioning low-carbon economy is not just about getting people onto the grid, it's about getting people onto electricity and doing it in a way that's really dignified.
因此，伟大的变化正在那里发生， 它值得世界的认可。 然而，它又将带领我们走向何方？  从政府和社会的角度来看， 它引领我们去实现 两个非常宏大的目标。 一是我们渴望为每个人提供能源， 其次，我们希望建设 一个功能完善的低碳经济。 我们此刻正在朝着目标努力， 一个功能完善的低碳经济 不仅是让人们能够接入电网， 更要让人们用上电， 并以一种有尊严的方式实现。
So I want us all to picture it for a moment, really picture what this could mean: [New energy ecosystem] an energy system that's not just about subsistence power, getting the family off the kerosene, but it's actually the full suite of appliances and tools and productivity that we've all gotten used to, so actually energy at a scale that can drive industrial development. And it's the ability to have powerful tools. It's the ability to be productive in the households, as a farmer, or as a carpenter or as a tailor and get your businesses to work and bring you into the economy.
请各位想象一下， 认真思考这可能意味着什么： [新能源生态系统] 这个能源系统不仅能提升生存能力， 帮助一些家庭 从煤油时代进入电灯时代， 事实上它能提供 一整套的家电和工具， 并带来与之相适应的生产力， 尽管这些我们都已经习以为常了。 而实际上能达到这等规模的 能源系统就足以推动工业发展了。 同时，这也是一种 拥有高效工具的能力， 是一种在农户中高效生产的 能力，无论你是农民、 木匠、还是裁缝， 并让企业家的公司能够运转， 引领人们进入低碳经济。
And I was working again a couple of days ago with a farmer just outside of Nairobi, small field, and he has an irrigation pump that's run off solar, and he was bragging about how much of a difference it made to his productivity. When we were listening to him, we were asking ourselves, at what point will it be that actually, you will be charging an electric scooter off your rooftop and taking your crops to market with mobility that you've charged yourself, using your own power? And that's an extraordinary thing that's happening, and if you listen to Susan and Francis, you get to this point where you say, "These guys have this extraordinary sense of dignity about the way they're achieving their power, the sense of ownership and the sense of pride, and I'm going to flip into a little tiny video clip, which is from a distributor of one of these companies that I'm talking about. And he puts it better than anyone I've ever heard it. So just listen to this.
几天前，我还与一位农民打过交道， 就在内罗比（肯尼亚首都） 郊外的小田地里， 他有一个灌溉泵，是太阳能驱动的， 他向我夸耀这个机器  给他的生产力带来了巨大的提升。  当我们在听他的故事时， 我们问自己， 什么时候 你会用屋顶上的太阳能电池板 为你的电动代步车充电， 并且把你的农作物运输到市场上时， 你用的是自己生产的电能？ 这一正在发生的变化是非常伟大的， 当你听苏珊和弗朗西斯 述说他们的故事时， 你会得出这样的结论： “这些人拥有这种非凡的尊严感， 来源于他们获取电能的方式， 同时他们还拥有 所有权意识和自豪感。 现在，我将播放一个短视频片段， 是来自我谈到的 这些公司中的一个经销商。 他所讲的比我听过的 其他任何人的都要好。 大家听听看。
Martin: So if it does happen that we get to a point where every home has their own independent supply of energy, that will give us the democracy of energy. That's it. And everybody has that choice, and everybody knows when they want to switch it on or off, whether they want to sell access or whether they want to store it. That freedom getting back into the hands of the consumer, that would be the most exciting thing.
马丁：如果我们真的能做到， 使每个家庭都有独立的能源供应， 这将给我们带来能源民主。 就是这样。 每个人都有这个选择， 众所周知，当他们想打开或关闭它时， 无论他们是想出售还是留着， 自由选择权都在消费者的手中。 这将是最令人兴奋的事情。
Amar Inamdar: Brilliant, right? That was Martin, and he has a really wonderful turn of phrase, and what a sense of vision that he captures.
演讲者：这很棒是吧？这就是马丁。 他的措辞非常出色， 同时拥有卓越的眼界。
So picture that for a moment: every household a proud producer as well as consumer of energy ... the ability to generate power, to share power, to sell power, all coming from your own generating asset sitting on your own property. Maybe even think about crowdsourcing with your neighbors the grid from the ground up, rather than waiting for the government to bring it from the top down.
大家想象一下： 每一个家庭既是一个骄傲的能源生产者， 也是一个能源消耗者。 无论是发电、与他人分享电能、 还是出售电能， 全部都来自于您自己的生财资产， 都是您自己的财产。 或许您甚至考虑过依靠自己的能力 与邻居一起众包电网， 而不是空等政府自上而下地来分配。
So in Africa, we have this extraordinary opportunity right now, an extraordinary opportunity, to change the world and create an energy system that everybody will be jealous of, and everybody will look to us as the innovators of. And that's the democracy of energy.
因此，在非洲， 我们现在有一个绝佳的机会， 一个非凡的机会， 来改变世界，并创建一个能源系统， 所有人肯定都会艳羡的这个系统的， 大家会把我们视为创新者。 而这就是能源民主。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢你们的倾听。
(Applause)
（掌声）
Chris Anderson: Quick question. So it's a really exciting vision. Help us understand, what are the key roadblocks right now? Like, what could make this go faster?
主持人：现在让我们 进入快速提问环节。 您所讲的的确是 一个非常令人兴奋的愿景。 能给我们讲讲， 现在遇到的主要障碍是什么吗？ 比如，怎样才能使它运作得更快？
AI: So the first one, I think, is really the intermittency of solar power. So the problem is that the sun only shines for 12 hours a day, so you've got darkness for 12 hours a day, and we need to have storage solutions that are better to help us take us down that path. So storage is really one.
演讲人：首先，我认为是 太阳能发电的间歇性问题。 这个问题在于 太阳每天只能发光12小时， 因此一天中有12个小时是黑夜， 我们就需要有制定存储电能的方案， 这能帮助我们 在这条路上更好地发展下去。 所以存储问题真的是 目前较大的一个阻碍。
CA: And those prices are coming down.
主持人：而且价格正在下跌。
AI: And those prices are coming down very quickly. Second, the appliance set. So it needs to get more efficient, and it needs to get more diverse. We need to do more of the things we in Africa want to do with the appliance set.
演讲者：是的，价格会下跌得很快。 第二个问题是关于电器的。 我们得提高它的效率， 使之更加多样化。 我们还需要做更多的事情。 我们想在非洲改进配套的家电设备。
CA: DC appliances.
主持人：直流电器。
AI: DC appliances, and I think there's a real opportunity there, Chris. I think the opportunity is that we could shift some of these 21 billion dollars of subsidies that governments are spending on the current electricity system and we could promote R&amp;D here in Africa to create some of these products, to be some of these entrepreneurs, and make this happen. So create this new system here.
演讲人：是的，直流电器。 克里斯，我认为这其中 存在着巨大的机遇。 在我看来，这一机遇 我们可以转移部分花在当前电力系统上的 高达210亿美元的政府补贴， 然后我们可以促进非洲的研发， 开发一些这类的产品，  成为这些企业家中的一员， 让这些计划成真。 因此，要在这里建设这个新系统。
CA: And some of the companies themselves, I mean, there's plenty of demand there. What's holding them back from supplying that demand? I mean, some of them talk about, they would like to sell 10x what they can currently sell.
主持人：有些公司本身也存在顾虑， 我是说这里的市场有大量的需求。 是什么阻碍他们回应这些需求？ 他们中有一些人说， 他们想卖出现在售价的10倍。
AI: Exactly. So for many of these capitals, it's that markets don't price consumer risk very well, and particularly in markets like ours, in emerging markets and here in Africa. So there's not enough working capital coming into this space because the big financiers look at this space and say, "I don't know how to price that risk, so I'm going to stay away from it." And that's holding a lot of these companies back.
演讲者：的确如此。 对许多这类的资产而言， 市场无法给消费者的风险合理定价。 特别是像我们这样的 一些新兴市场和非洲的市场。  所以才缺乏足够的 营运资本进入这个市场。 因为金融大亨评估这个市场时会说： “我不知道如何给风险定价， 所以我要远离它。” 这就是让这些公司望而却步的原因。
CA: Well, it's incredibly exciting to picture what could happen here. In my mind, this might be the biggest leapfrog of them all. And thank you for all you're doing and for sharing that vision so powerfully.
主持人：想象一下这里的前景 的确非常振奋人心。 在我看来， 这可能是其中最大的突破。 感谢你所做的一切， 并积极地与我们分享 这一美好愿景。