The India-based team conducted a small study to test the viability of the idea, with work now focused on streamlining a prototype system.

For most of us, lighting our homes is as simple as flipping a switch, but there are still huge swathes of the global population without easy access to electricity – in fact, there are more than 400 million people without grid-connected electricity in India alone. The World Bank estimates that the cost of extending the energy grid to be between US$8,000 and $10,000 per kilometer. It's a huge problem, and one that requires a sustainable, low-cost solution.

That's where the IBM study comes in. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that somewhere in the region of 50 million laptop or desktop computers are discarded in the United States each and every year, with many of them still carrying perfectly serviceable lithium-ion batteries.