Liberia, July 8 -- Every morning before sunrise, Karrus Hayes loads a pickup truck in Paynesville and points it toward the interior. The road to Bapolu County is long. The road to Sinoe is longer. But he goes to those rural counties anyway because people there are waiting for light.

Hayes is the executive director of Sunstar Green Energy, one of Liberia's growing crop of solar distribution companies. Between 2020 and 2025, his company distributed over 3,000 solar home systems to households across six counties - Montserrado, Bomi, Bong, Nimba, Sinoe, and Gbarpolu. He calls 2025 the best year his company has ever had.

"This has been the highest number of distributions in a year," Hayes said in an interview at his Paynesville office. "Bef...