the island of sumba in eastern indonesia is culturally distinct from the rest of the country with unique burial traditions animist religions and its own unique language but it shares many of the same problems as other isolated regions poverty high infant mortality and diseases like malaria common access to power for the 650 000 islanders is a huge problem nearly half have no access to electricity and use kerosene and wood fires for lighting and cooking it's expensive unsafe and unhealthy meanwhile the island has an abundance of renewable energy with plentiful solar and biomass resources and significant potential for hydro power and wind to harness this green energy for sumba the dutch ngo hevos began working with the government they set an ambitious goal to extend electricity to the vast majority of symbols population using 100 percent renewable energy this initiative to turn somber into an iconic island of clean energy has since attracted additional support from other development partners the private sector and most recently the adb progress has already been made in rolling out renewable energy the village of we potendo benefits from a government-sponsored small-scale solar project it brings power to 36 houses for a small monthly fee much lower than the household kerosene bill for village headman led dwarga having electricity at home has changed his life and for the rest of the village it means the chance to work and study after dark and access to things like television for the first time adb joined the initiative in 2013 with a technical assistance grant worth one million dollars it's aimed at scaling up renewable energy access in somber and in other areas of eastern indonesia this was later increased to two million dollars with a grant from the government of norway adb's involvement can help leverage this model across other geographies within indonesia and outside of indonesia by supporting the overall development of the of the program and the subsequent implementation that can provide a model that can be replicated elsewhere this ambitious energy experiment on somber is important if it's a success on the island it could enable indonesia to widen cost-effective energy access across many other poor isolated communities