Matt Grosz’s mission for the last 20 years can be explained with a single picture: a satellite image of the world at night, with major cities blazing with light and large swaths of land shrouded in darkness.
The image reminds Grosz SM ’03, SM ’06, PhD ’12 of what he’s trying to change. Grosz is the CEO of One Power, an MIT spin out building networks of mini grids powered by solar energy to bring electricity to rural regions of Lesotho.
There are other companies building mini grids in Africa, but One Power is the only one to have accomplished the feat in Lesotho, and it’s not hard to understand why. Known as the kingdom in the sky, Lesotho is a small, developing country crossed by mountain ranges and rivers, making it difficult to get electricity to rural regions. Recent estimates suggest that less than half of all households have electricity.
One Power’s first mini grid is a small system that has been serving around 200 customers for more than a year. The operation is part of an eight-mini grid project that will provide reliable electricity for the first time to more than 30,000 people, 13 health clinics, 25 schools, and over 100 small businesses.
Construction on those sites is underway, and Grosz is currently working on a power transmission and road crossing over the Sen river, the largest in Southern Africa. During the project, the operators of a health clinic on the off-grid side of the river let Grosz stay there on the condition that he fix their diesel generator. He got the generator working again, but if everything goes according to plan, the clinic won’t need it for much longer.
“If you don’t have power, then you don’t have lights, you don’t have computers, you don’t have communications,” Grosz says. “That means hospitals can’t refer patients or get expert opinions or run equipment, and schools can’t get internet. When the fundamental institutions for health and education don’t have power, their effectiveness is pretty limited, which affects quality of life for everybody that lives in the area.”
Finding a spark
The health clinic Grosz is staying in isn’t far from where he first learned about energy access problems in rural Africa. Between 2000 and 2002, Grosz lived in Lesotho, without electricity, as a member of the Peace Corps. The experience inspired him to help, but without an engineering background, he knew he’d need to gain more skills first.
“I applied to MIT so that I could gain some knowledge and experience and apply it in this setting,” Grosz says, noting he spent a lot longer at MIT than he initially intended.
Grosz first joined the research lab of Harry Helmond, the William E Leon hard Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, learning about topics like physics and fluid mechanics as part of his first year at MIT. After that, he enrolled in another master’s program in technology and policy. In 2007, he began a PhD at MIT studying solar thermal and photovoltaic hybrid power generation.
The education wasn’t the only reason Grosz stayed at MIT. Throughout his time on campus, he also took advantage of funding opportunities presented by the IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge and the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition (the $50K at the time). Grosz was also awarded a Fulbright scholarship while at MIT, and was selected for grants from the World Bank and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Grosz also aligned himself closely with MIT D-Lab. During his second master’s, he led trips to Lesotho with other D-Lab students. Between his master’s and his PhD, Grosz spent a year living in Lesotho exploring energy solutions with three other MIT students, including Amy Mueller ’02, SM ’03, PhD ’12, who is currently chief financial officer of One Power.
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