South Africa solar power: Pay-as-you-go system helps save lives

The medical equipment keeping Mark Moodley's mother alive no longer relies on an erratic power supply.

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She spent three weeks in intensive care last year, and now back at home in Benoni, east of Johannesburg, she needs an oxygen concentrator to help her breathe.

But the country's erratic electricity supply meant could not be relied on.

"There were days we'd be without power for six hours. I had to use a car battery to run her oxygen tank, but that didn't last long and you'd have to sit with her with her arms raised to try and get oxygen into her lungs," Mr Moodley tells the BBC.

"Sometimes we had to rush her to hospital when that didn't work. It was scary."