EAST LONDON - Rural electrification has been given a boost by the launch yesterday of a prepaid solar electrical unit.

Local companies Vektronix and Rural Area Power Solutions (Raps) Technologies, which make the unit - in a box manufactured by another local company, the Fibreglass Shop - said it would radically change people's lives.

"Helping people who live in remote areas - so remote that they are off the grid - get a little light gives Vektronix a deep sense of making a contribution to improving people's lives," the company's quality assurance director, Julie Skinner, said at the launch.

In December Vektronix became the only electronics company in the country to make up printer circuit boards for Raps Technologies, which has designed the innovative solar prepaid unit.

"These units provide households with a solar-powered battery which gives enough energy to power a light, cellphone charger, a radio and - for several hours a day - a black and white television set," Skinner said.

"The access to lighting has resulted in an improvement in social life.

"Many customers have expressed satisfaction that this gives them an increased sense of security for their property," Raps Technologies' Rolf Niemand said.

The boards that Vektronix make are used throughout the country.

- DDR