Green Scene Energy’s first sale was a small solar home system in Abuserkema, installed at the house of a farmer named Shambel in 2017. In January 2022, we marked our fifth anniversary the only way that felt right: we went back.
Getting to Abuserkema still means crossing the river and riding the last stretch by donkey cart. We arrived in the afternoon, and when the sun went down the village showed us what five years of solar light look like: children doing their homework in the evening, supper cooked under a lamp instead of firewood smoke in the dark, a warm doorway where there used to be none.
We celebrated in Shambel’s home, the same room where our very first system went on the wall. There was a cake, a coffee ceremony with fresh grass laid on the floor, music and dancing. We stayed the night as guests of our first customer, who has long since become a friend.
Green Scene has grown from single rooftops to mini-grids, hospitals and solar water pumping across Ethiopia. But every project still aims at the same moment we saw in Abuserkema: the first light switching on.
