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Off-Grid-Industry Yearbook

edited by Harald Schützeichel

2017

Off-Grid-Industry Yearbook 2017

edited by Harald Schützeichel

© for this edition: 2017 by Sun-Connect News, Freiburg (Germany)

© photo frontpage: Stiftung Solarenergie - Solar Energy Foundation

No use of this publication may be made for educational or non-profit purpose or resale or other commercialpurpose, without the written permission of the copyright holder(s).

Contact: Sun-Connect News, Basler Landstrasse 8, 79111 Freiburg, Germany

email: [email protected]

Web: www.Sun-Connect-News.org

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Off-Grid-Industry Yearbook 2017 | 3

Preface

Sun-Connect News publishes since 2012 practice-relevant articles from renowned international authors of theoff-grid business. With more than 8,000 recipients of its regular newsletter, Sun-Connect News is the largestinformation media of this young industry.

The most important and relevant articles of the year 2016 were selected for the present anthology, coveringthe entire spectrum of the off-grid business. The contributions do not provide a comprehensive handbook, butgive suggestions, hints and tips. Some essays are also challenging, stimulate in-depth discussion or opposition.

I hope you enjoy this issue of the Off-Grid Industry Yearbook!

Freiburg/Germany, March 2017

Dr. Harald SchützeichelEditor of Sun-Connect News

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Content

Preface ....................................................................................................................................... 3

Market

The consumerization of energy is just beginning ....................................................................................... 10Bennett Cohen

Electricity is a means, not an end ............................................................................................................. 12Inga Vesper

Africa needs more than a one-size-fits-all energy solution ........................................................................ 13Daniel Tomlinson

What lies behind Africa's lack of access and unreliable power supplies ..................................................... 15Peter Penar

Policy, not finance, biggest obstacle to scaling decentralized renewable energy:Energy Access Summit ............................................................................................................................. 18William Brent

It’s time to change our definition of ‘real’ energy in developing countries ................................................ 20Daniel Tomlinson

The four barriers for the diffusion of solar energy technologies in Africa: Trends in Kenya ........................ 22Izael P. Da Silva

Solving energy poverty through an off-grid solar electricity revolution ..................................................... 26Jacqueline Novogratz

Off-grid solar can be game-changer for electricity access in Central Asia ................................................... 29Sohail Hasnie

Off-grid renewables: the sustainable route to 100% global electricity access ............................................ 31Adnan Z. Amin

4 Lessons from Power Africa .................................................................................................................... 34Andrew Herscowitz

Energy access and a light-bulb moment: How stronger collaboration on renewableswill benefit the Asia-Pacific region ............................................................................................................ 36Shamshad Akhtar

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Africa’s green energy challenge: Mega projects, off-grid or somewhere in between? ................................ 38Peyton Fleming

How solar can benefit emerging economies/countries .............................................................................. 42Courtni Wisenbaker-Scheel

Market development trends in the African solar PV off-grid sector ........................................................... 44Sabi Magyari

Off-Grid Living

Development should be about happiness, not GDP growth ...................................................................... 50Daniel Anthes

Solar-powered farming, built in Kenya ...................................................................................................... 52Justus Bahati Wanzala

Chbar Chros: outlook of the first solar village and mobile payment system of Cambodia ........................... 55Sevea

Solar power, text messages fight maternal deaths in rural Cameroon ....................................................... 57Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

How women are reaping benefits from Africa's solar revolution ............................................................... 59Jean Chemnick

‘Suitcase lab’ in the fight against kala-azar ................................................................................................ 62SciDev.Net

Reducing energy poverty not only for solar and impact investors ............................................................. 63Ned Tozun

Maasai women are leading a solar revolution in Africa ............................................................................. 65Rudi Bressa

Living off the grid in the 21st century ....................................................................................................... 66Victoria Slater

Pay-as-you-go irrigation aims to cut water use in Bangladesh ................................................................... 68Rafiqul Islam

Beyond the pricetag: The real benefits of off-grid solar ............................................................................. 69Paul Gubbins and Julie Zollmann

The rise of off the grid communities ......................................................................................................... 74Christopher Koulouris

Off-Grid energy for rural communities: bright promise and caution lights ahead ...................................... 76Elizabeth Littlefield

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As solar power expands the work day, incomes rise in eastern Kenya ....................................................... 78Kagondu Njagi

Pay-as-you-go solar model brings security to small Kenyan communities .................................................. 80Christabel Ligami

Business

Rwandan entrepreneur’s solar-powered mobile kiosks charge phones, create jobs .................................. 84Ann Brown

Trading solar-generated power between households to change the way consumers buy electricity .......... 86Amy Bainbridge

Business mentorship gives entrepreneur a choice .................................................................................... 88Energy4Impact

5 signs sustainability is the new engine for global economic growth ......................................................... 90Tim Nixon

Co-opetition: A way forward for solar actors in developing countries ....................................................... 92Kassahun Y. Kebede

Lighting the way to women’s economic empowerment ............................................................................ 94Shweta Maheshwari and Jeanne Finestone

Who will serve the world’s missing middle? ............................................................................................. 96Justin Guay

Solar panels power business surge - not just lights - in Tanzania ............................................................... 98Kizito Makoye

Solar business models for growth: The private sector needs to lead on India’s rural electrification deficit ..................................................................................................................... 100Zadie Oleksiw

The growing influence of telecom companies in off-grid markets ............................................................ 102Solarplaza

To scale or not to scale? Lessons from India’s off-grid solar technology sector ........................................ 104Kartikeya Singh

Challenges and opportunities for foreign solar energy firms in Africa ...................................................... 107Jon Sarpong

Women solar entrepreneurs drive East African business surge ............................................................... 109Kizito Makoye

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Finance

Fund raising challenges faced by start-ups .............................................................................................. 112Abhijeet Bhandari

How industry leaders drive philanthropy forward in developing countries .............................................. 114Aimee Williamson

Who gets a $1B line of credit? Akon woos Middle East investors for solar lighting Africa business .......... 116Dana Sanchez

The World Bank’s energy lending is stuck in the past .............................................................................. 118Josh Klemm

Low investment hinders access to energy ............................................................................................... 120News Ghana

How solar investment can light up India ................................................................................................. 122Jigar Shah

A tribute to the inventor of Pay-as-you-go: Jürgen Gehr ......................................................................... 124Harald Schützeichel

Technology

Going off grid: Tata researchers tackle rural electrification ..................................................................... 126Kathryn M. O’Neill

Sustainable electricity for all: Experiences with mini-grids in Senegal ...................................................... 131Debajit Palit

When the grid becomes the back-up energy source for business enterprise - The Nigerian story ............ 134Godfrey Ogbemudia

It’s not off-grid; it is just the smaller grid! ............................................................................................... 136Nidhi Bali

Are batteries guilty as charged? ............................................................................................................. 138Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

Changing lives with solar microgrids ....................................................................................................... 143Laurie Guevara-Stone

Designing (for) solar waste from Nairobi ................................................................................................ 146Declan Murray

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Countries

India matters: Solar revolution in Uttar Pradesh ..................................................................................... 150Sutapa Deb

Bangladesh: Access to clean water and job creation for disadvantaged youth through solar power ........ 154Business Call to Action

Light for life: Nepal solar farming ........................................................................................................... 156Kristin Lau

Building a digital finance ecosystem in Zimbabwe .................................................................................. 157Lauren Braniff

Going off-grid in Timor Leste .................................................................................................................. 159Sally Bolton

What's holding back off-grid renewable energy in Zimbabwe? ............................................................... 162Tonderayi Mukeredzi

Bright lights for Benin: Market introduction of Pay-as-you-go solar ........................................................ 164Maarten Kleijn and Edouard Fagnon

Appendix

Authors .................................................................................................................................................. 168

Sources ................................................................................................................................................... 171

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The Market

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Bennett Cohen

The consumerization of energy is just beginning

n May 2015, Elon Musk revealed the TeslaPowerwall -- a stationary battery for homeow-ners that features essentially the same battery

technology as Tesla’s cars. Energy analysts poredover the specifications of the lithium-ion technolo-gy because of the promise it has to impact bothtransportation and electricity markets.

For most observers, the salient detail was thePowerwall’s price. Weighing in at $350 per kilo-watt-hour, all-in -- well below the industry’s ex-pectations for battery cost evolution -- the deviceraised a lot of eyebrows.

What intrigued us most was that the Powerwallis clearly conceived as a consumer product. Whileits sleek design and hyped launch felt totally natu-ral to those accustomed to following Apple, it ser-ved as a wakeup call to the energy industry: energyis being consumerized.

It’s remarkable that fans went nuts over thelaunch of a battery -- a technology that usually justenables something interesting (like an iPhone)rather than being interesting in and of itself. Ener-gy, the basic foundation of our prosperous life-styles, is moving away from centralized powerplants and closer to the customer. And customerschoose winners and losers in radically differentways than do utilities or the other incumbents ofthe energy industry.

This disruption and consumerization of energyis being driven by a number of accelerating trends:

1. The shift from a centralized to a more dis-tributed energy system architecture

2. The global drive toward lower-carbon energy

3. The rollout of the internet of things4. Developing countries leap-frogging conven-

tional power grids to consumer energy

From centralized to distributed energyAs Amory Lovins and I wrote about in 2010, the

power markets are clearly shifting away fromcathedral-like coal and nuclear power stationstoward modular, mass-producible, and highlyscalable micropower technologies -- renewables,like solar and wind, and efficient combined-heat-and-power systems (mostly fueled with naturalgas).

The ascendancy of micropower is democrati-zing the future of the energy system, enablingeveryone from individual homeowners to commer-cial and industrial customers to quickly select andobtain a portfolio of distributed solutions, avoidingthe decade-long approval processes required tobuild multibillion-dollar coal or nuclear powerplants.

The decarbonization of energyThe Paris climate agreement made at least one

thing clear -- the world intends to shift toward alower-carbon energy system. Technologies likerooftop solar and home batteries can significantlycontribute to decarbonizing the power sector.Having just committed to emission-reduction tar-gets on the global stage, governments around theworld will find it hard to side with incumbents toslow the adoption of these consumer energy tech-nologies. In fact, governments will likely promote

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them, further accelerating the consumerization ofenergy.

The internet of energyThe internet of things is moving out of a phase

characterized by hype and uncertainty into one ofscale and impact. Many sectors will be impacted,including energy. A proliferation of sensors andcontrols will enable an intelligent and resilientenergy system made up of myriad distributedenergy resources. The internet of things will alsocreate a platform for new business models thatderive additional value from distributed energyresources for both customers and energy markets.

Leap-frogging energyIn countries like the U.S., we are slowly seeing a

transition from the old energy system to the new.In contrast, developing countries in Asia and Africaare more often leap-frogging the centralized powersystem and going straight to consumer energy.Tired of waiting for a centralized solution to reach

them, customers in countries as varied as Kenyaand Nepal are choosing to purchase consumersolar-plus-battery power products from M-Kopa orEmpower Generation. For many families andcommunities in these regions, their first experienceof reliable electricity will come from a solar panelon their roof and a small battery on their wall.Though on a smaller scale, these are the sameessential technologies and concepts behind Tesla’sPowerwall.

The consumerization of energy is just begin-ning, and it represents a profound shift in the waywe power society. Opportunities abound for ent-repreneurs and investors, but most of all for con-sumers of energy.

Bennett Cohen is a senior investment associatewith Shell Technology Ventures and chairman ofEmpower Generation.

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Inga Vesper

Electricity is a means, not an end

evelopment workers agree that access toenergy is a game-changer. To a great ex-tent, they are right. According to the World

Bank, one in five people on the planet still have noregular access to electricity. They cannot study orwork at night, face danger in unlit villages andcities and cannot access vital information techno-logies, such as phones and the internet.

To address this situation, a myriad of NGOs areoccupying themselves with bringing electricity topoor and marginalised communities, or introducinggadgets that generate their own power. The lastdecade has seen the pay-as-you-go solar panel, thegravity lamp and the pee-powered toilet, to citejust a few examples. -

Yet, often the introduction of such innovationswill not cause a development spurt. An event atthe United Kingdom’s Royal Geographical Societyon 24 February tried to find out why.

One of the speakers, Simon Bransfield-Garth,presented research on how households respond togetting access to electricity. Bransfield-Garth is theCEO of Azuri, a company specialising in providingsolar power to poor households in sub-SaharanAfrica. Bransfield-Garth told the audience that thebenefit of electricity is best measured in terms ofwhat people do with it, not in terms of the amountof power that goes to each household.

According to his statistics, people with accessto 5 watts of electricity will use it to charge theirphones and power one or two lights. If they getaccess to 10 watts they will power an additionaltwo lights and a radio.

If people get 60 watts of electricity, they willget a television set and a fan — to improve theirquality of life. When they have access to at least 90watts, people start to use electricity to powerworkshops, factories or farming equipment thathelps them grow their business, for example.

“When people first get electricity it extendstheir working day by about three hours,” he said.“The real game-changer comes when people areable to step up from a position without any tech-nology infrastructure to a point where they canessentially access the same technologies as peoplein developed countries.”

Sarah Best, a researcher at the International In-stitute for Environment and Development in theUnited Kingdom, pointed out that industrialgrowth is only possible when power supply is plen-tiful and secure.

“Governments measure access by looking atwhether someone has a cook stove or a solar pa-nel, but that’s not what it’s about,” she said. “It’sabout whether it enables people to better theirlives.”

As the event drew to a close, this was the finalmessage for the audience. When it comes toelectricity, size does count, and what you do with itmatters even more.

Inga Vesper is global news and features editor atSciDev.Net.

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Daniel Tomlinson

Africa needs more than a one-size-fits-all energy solution

magine yourself as one of the 620 million peop-le in Africa living day to day in the dark next to atoxic, dim kerosene lantern.You realize a sense

of urgency to improve your family’s situation withan openness towards reliable solutions.Resolvingenergy poverty for families in Africa and across theglobe where collectively over a Billion people livewith no access to modern energy services means abetter and more stable world for everyone. How-ever, examining the solutions to energy povertyseems to be stuck in gridlock - which is to say,focus is stuck on the grid.

The recent bipartisan lead “Electrify Africa Act”solidified the role of the United States to bothdevelop Africa’s energy market and help bringelectricity access to the hundreds of millions ofpeople living in energy poverty.Coinciding with theAct, Power Africa released their Roadmap outliningU.S. energy ambitions, including 40 percent of newconnections coming from Beyond the Grid.Thisstep signals we have made progress out of a unila-teral understanding that energy only comes from acentralized source.

The International Energy Agency, the most ci-ted authority on global energy, seconds this stanceindicating that 60 percent of African homes will beserved through distributed renewable solutions, apopulation which today is 370 million people ormore than the entire United States. As we worktowards resolving energy poverty we must emb-race a hard-and- fast approach to apply diversifiedenergy solutions that make sense according tocontext – this isn’t a “one-size fits all” problem.

For example, an average rural family in Kenyaallocates 30 percent of annual income towardssecuring a new grid connection, and others willnever see it regardless of how badly they ask. Thissuggests we need to check our prejudice for howan energy poor household gets service.

All of us perform practical, situation-based ana-lysis every day, like when deciding our mode oftransportation. It’s time we realize that energy isno different.

Energy solutions and transportation have a lotof similarities.We use a variety of solutions in va-rying contexts to arrive at our destinations.I appre-ciate energy services from the grid just as much asI appreciate riding the subway in New York City –it’s cheap, its efficient and some might argue it’sthe best service in town.But if someone asked meto go to Ngarenanyuki, a last mile village inTanzania, I’d likely sit on the back of a motor biketaxi to get there– not ride the subway.Never mindthat it’s too expensive to build the subway to Nga-renanyuki and there are not enough customerstraveling there to make the service remotelysustainable – let alone profitable; it just doesn’tmake sense.No one in Ngarenanyuki is waiting forthe subway.

Yet when we look at much of the current thin-king and discussion to bring modern energy ser-vices into the homes of billions of people in villageslike Ngarenanyuki , many still resemble buildingsubways where as people instead need somethingthat makes sense. Energy poor families need a fast,cheap and reliable service delivery like a motor-

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bike. Something that meets the energy demandtoday, not decades from now.

Distributed Renewable Energy solutions ran-ging from solar lanterns, home systems and mini-grids are the energy access equivalent of the motorbike – they are fast, cheap and reliable solutionsthat makes sense today, tomorrow and for possiblydecades to come. Sitting around waiting for thegrid could see a couple more generations grow upand go by in the dark – still many may never seeit.And yes, distributed energy solutions all provide“real electricity” at introductory levels like cleanlighting, cell phone charging and power to basicappliances like radios and televisions, all of whichprovide huge gains economically and to quality oflife that are reflected in measures of human deve-lopment index.

The challenge to develop Africa’s energy mar-ket and bring modern electricity access to the con-tinent is immense. It constitutes an all hand ondeck seriousness where solutions are aligned tothe right contexts.This means central grid invest-

ments, increasing sustainable production andconnecting households where possible. Where thegrid is not feasible it means a range of distributedenergy solutions that provide high-quality, highvalue service.

When we have distributed solutions to powerthe needs of communities that otherwise won’thave anything, we need to apply the same matureanalysis we use when comparing efficient modes oftransportation.We need to get out of grid-lock, getout from a one-size fits all mentally and embrace asteadfast approach that includes the range of dis-tributed energy solutions.Billions of people arecounting on it.

Daniel Tomlinson is an entrepreneur, author, re-searcher and expert in energy access.

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Peter Penar

What lies behind Africa's lack of access and unreliablepower supplies

frobarometer, a pan-African, non-partisan research network, recently re-leased a report highlighting Africa’s

electricity challenges. Power shortages can hampersocioeconomic development, but they also haveimplications for health and education.

The Conversation Africa’s energy and environ-ment editor Ozayr Patel spoke to Peter Penar, oneof the researchers.

How serious is the electricity crisis in Africa?One of the most glaring disparities is that

across the 36 countries surveyed, 94% of urbandwellers have access to the electric grid, whereasonly 45% do in rural areas.

The urban-rural divide is most pronounced inGuinea, Mali and Niger. This suggests that majorcities, including capitals, have fairly good gridcoverage, but the outlying rural areas remain se-verely wanting.

The problem of accessing electricity varies gre-atly across countries. Many North African andisland countries achieve high rates of access. Butseveral countries have extended the electric grid toonly a third or less of the country. Examples inclu-de Burundi (17%), Burkina Faso (25%), Sierra Leone(29%), Niger (30%), Guinea (31%), Liberia (31%)and Mali (32%).

West and East African countries lag behindother regions in extending the grid. Southern Africais a mixed picture, with many countries fallingbelow the 36-country average (66%). These include

Zimbabwe (62%), Namibia (62%), Zambia (50%),Mozambique (50%) and Malawi (42%).

The next step is whether the electricity grid ac-tually connects to citizens. In some instances, theelectricity grid is in the area but connections todwellings are not present.

But even being connected to the grid doesn’tensure electricity supply. This is because power isintermittent. In South Africa 14% of those with anelectric connection suggest that power never oronly occasionally works, with even higher propor-tions in Zimbabwe (44%), Zambia (33%), Botswana(23%), Namibia (19%) and Kenya (15%).

Why is providing electricity so important?Electricity is central to the broader develop-

ment agenda. Without electricity it is unlikely thatdevelopment projects and public investments,such as schools and community centres, can achie-ve their intended goals. The expansion of techno-logy initiatives in rural areas, such as supplyinglaptops to students, will not be sustainable withoutreliable connections to electricity. Electricity is alsoessential for basic things like charging one’s mobilephone or powering a household water pump andheater.

It has broader implications too. A lack ofelectricity prevents efforts to improve electionquality, as the equipment for biometric registrationand identification requires a reliable connection.For example, biometric voters lists couldn’t bemanaged in some areas in Kenya’s 2013 elections

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because computers ran out of battery power bymidday. The were unable to be charged at pollingstations.

Any similar effort to employ technology in stateadministration in areas without the power grid, aconnection or supply will be futile under the cur-rent constraints in many African countries.

A larger concern is that many countries, evenmore developed countries such as South Africa,have failed to engage in long-term energy resourceplanning.

Would it be better to extend the electricitygrid in rural areas or to pursue renewable energyinitiatives?

Renewable energy initiatives should definitelybe part of national energy plans. Renewable ener-gy production is generally good for the environ-ment and may not require large-scale infrastructu-ral projects and investments. But some initiativesneed to be complemented by traditional approa-ches.

For renewable energy projects to work syste-matically, they must provide rural dwellers and thepoor the same coverage and quality as on-the-gridelectricity flows.

Another consideration is who is supporting andinitiating these renewable energy solutions. Africancitizens and states must be equal partners andinnovators in the energy sector, particularly ascooperation with other countries, such as the US(through Power Africa), increases.

How have North African countries and Mauri-tius done so well? Are there lessons for othercountries?

These countries benefit from their geographyand population distribution, and higher levels ofeconomic development.

The fact that Mauritius and Cape Verde aredoing well is most likely due to the fact that theyare fairly small and easy to connect to a grid sys-tem.

In North Africa one factor is that, on average,the population is more urbanised and geographi-cally centralised than in most sub-Saharan Africancountries.

This means that there’s no need for extensiverural electrification efforts and the focus can be onurban areas. In addition, higher levels of economic

development may contribute to electrification.Unfortunately this suggests that the solutions torural electrification will be hard to extend to sub-Saharan African countries.

Electricity isn’t high on many African count-ries’ priority lists. Why is this? What can be doneabout it?

Employment, effective health care, water supp-ly, and agriculture and farming were all rated asmore pressing problems than electricity. These areall highly tangible and involve basic issues oflivelihoods.

The fact is that electricity is important to all ofthem. For example, investments in energy have thepotential to create jobs to build and maintain theenergy infrastructure. In addition, advancements inhealth care and water management will involvetechnology applications, with electricity being aprerequisite.

This is why it’s important that civil society andgrassroots associations explain to their govern-ments that electricity should be a pillar of nationaldevelopment plans and that improvements inelectricity supply support investments in otherdevelopment areas.

Some countries are connected to the grid butstill have electricity issues. In Nigeria, for examp-le, 96% of households are connected but only 18%of these connections function more than abouthalf the time. What can be done to improve this?

The gaps between grid extension and electricitysupply are sizable for many countries, such as Ni-geria, Ghana and Cameroon.

Although it is hard to generalise, part of theproblem is government mismanagement of electri-city resources and the failure to develop a feasiblenational energy plan. This involves seeking out adiversified supply of energy to meet increasingdemand.

In the case of Ghana, citizens clearly blamegovernment mismanagement for failing to supplyelectricity. This is clear from the fact that the pro-portion of Ghanaians saying they approve of thegovernment’s performance declined from 48% in2012 to 23% in 2014.

The neglect from government is also rooted ininequalities in the countries. For example, in Nige-ria the energy supply burden is shifted from the

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government to individuals. To maintain electricity,those who can afford it invest in generators run ongas or diesel. Only citizens who can afford topurchase fuel for the generator and can find timeto wait in long lines at gas stations – or hire some-one to wait for them – are able to maintain electri-city in the house.

Peter Penar, Researcher and PhD candidate in theDepartment of Political Science, Michigan StateUniversity.

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William Brent

Policy, not finance, biggest obstacle to scalingdecentralized renewable energy: Energy Access Summit

enewable energy companies in emergingmarkets in Africa and Asia frequently lamentthe shortage of financing as the main barrier

to scaling decentralized solutions, such as rooftopsolar and mini-grids. But at a summit in early June,industry leaders singled out the lack of supportivenational energy policies as the biggest obstacle toaccelerated growth.

The decentralized renewable energy industry,which will play a central role in solving energypoverty for the 1.1 billion people (17 percent ofhumanity) worldwide without access to electricity,is booming, and significant advances in policy arebeing made. However, much more needs to bedone, according to investment, business and civilsociety leaders at EnergyAccessX, an official initia-tive of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM7) held inSan Francisco.

"Policy and finance have to catch up with tech-nology," said Rachel Kyte, CEO of Sustainable Ener-gy for All and special representative for the UNSecretary-General.

Policy and regulatory changes can have a trans-formative effect on energy access and result inmore rapid deployment of distributed renewableenergy. Such changes include dedicated electrifica-tion targets, and fiscal and other incentives thatfocus on specific renewable energy technologies(i.e., exemptions on value added tax (VAT) andimport duties).

In recent months, many national governments

have expanded existing targets and policies fordecentralized renewables or created new ones,global renewable energy multi-stakeholder net-work REN21 said in a report released at CEM7.

According to the report, Kenya, Rwanda, SierraLeone and Tanzania all removed VATs on solarproducts. India removed excise duties on decentra-lized solar systems, and Uttar Pradesh (the Indianstate with the most people lacking access to ener-gy) announced plans to waive its VAT on solarenergy equipment, while introducing a 30 percentinvestment subsidy for mini-grids.

Rwanda approved a policy that included a tar-get of 22 percent of its population with decentrali-zed systems by 2018, while Tanzania announced atarget of 1 million solar installations by the end of2017, which is expected to supply solar electricityto 10 percent of the nation’s population and createover 15,000 solar jobs. Ghana launched a homesolar program to provide electricity to 100,000households. Sierra Leone has pledged to solarize atleast 250,000 homes by next year.

But despite the progress, decentralized rene-wable companies still have to work overtime tofind capital because of perceived policy risk. Thisrisk "gives investors cold feet," said Cathy Zoi, CEOof mini-grid developer Axess Energy.

Nicole Poindexter, CEO at Energicity, said that"policy framework to de-risk financing is the topneed" to achieve universal energy access. This wasechoed by Shell Foundation deputy director Prade-

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ep Pursnani, who said "policy is a massive barrier,"calling specifically for a disruption in tariff setting.Besides pricing, Poindexter said more policy clarityis needed around how decentralized assets will betreated if the centralized grid is extended, andaround government expectations of service quality.

Disruption is also needed in government mind-sets, added Richenda Van Leeuwen, the formerhead of UN Foundation's energy access initiative.Van Leeuwen stressed the need for more evolvedthinking not just from energy ministries, but acrossgovernments, where other ministries responsiblefor health, education, finance and rural livelihoodsare often more receptive and proactive on energyaccess. Policy reform must simultaneously be un-dertaken at the sub-national level, not just thefederal level, she added.

Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary at India's Ministryof New and Renewable Energy, told EnergyAccessXthat New Delhi was in favor of a policy environ-ment that is favorable to private decentralizedrenewable energy companies, but those policiesmust ensure sustainability of business models."Households are very used to the government," hesaid. "Even if the government wanted to run away,the people won't let us."

A consensus at EnergyAccessX was that a key to

achieving policy movement is providing strongerdata and success stories, and making sure that thenarrative of the transformative power of decentra-lized solutions not only comes from the privatesector and NGOs working to solve energy poverty,but is peer-to-peer, i.e. from the governmentswhich are actually doing the work to make it hap-pen. It was also stressed that no single policy leveris the answer.

Gemma May, advisor to the Energy Africa cam-paign of the UK Department for International De-velopment, pointed out that a single policy focus isunsustainable. "It's not any one policy, it's a suite,"she said, reiterating the "need to tell stories onsteroids."

"There are no markets without governments,"said Hal Connolly, SVP of programs at the ClimateReality Project. "Clean energy is affordable, and it'sa policy decision for every country. That's the storywe need to make sure governments understand."

William Brent is currently a director at Power forAll.

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Daniel Tomlinson

It’s time to change our definition of ‘real’ energyin developing countries

n recent months, GTM has played host to adebate about what delivering "real" energymeans in developing countries.I have long argued for the rapid scale-up of off-

grid, pay-as-you-go solar as a faster way to deliverenergy and financial services to those withoutaccess to the grid or traditional banking.

In January, Katherine Wolfram, a business pro-fessor at the University of California, Berkeley,argued that this model does not deliver "real"kilowatt-hours comparable in quality or price tothe kilowatt-hours provided by centralized grids inthe developing world.

But it's not that simple.“It’s like comparing apples and oranges,” said

Xavier Helgesen, co-founder and CEO of Off-GridElectric. “Kilowatt-hours are irrelevant for off-gridsolar. What is relevant are the quantity and qualityof energy services delivered.”

So what is “real" energy anyway?Real energy is the amount of energy required

to do what we want -- not some muscle-car mea-sure of inefficient excess. It’s not surprising thatcustomers in rural developing markets like Kenyaentering the modern energy world feel the same;they want enough energy to do what they wantwithout it costing them an arm and a leg. Whenpeople talk about "real" energy, they're talkingabout an over-engineered model for the market.

“Imagine if other industries operated in thisway,” said Chad Larson, co-founder and CFO of M-

Kopa. “What if the only software that was availableto run any type of business was a full-blown milli-on-dollar Oracle enterprise suite? Oracle softwareis right for big companies, but a small businessmight run their numbers just fine in Excel. This ideais the same as assuming that most homes in Kenyaneed the same connection as a home in Kansas --it’s just not correct," said Larson.

Here lies the irony. A centralized system seemslike it would offer the greatest return on invest-ment. But that assumption is based on outdatedeconomic thinking that’s expensive, wasteful andignores new technology.

“Some may fail to see where the puck is going,as Wayne Gretzky famously said,” said Helgesen.

Here's where the puck is going: “An industryoperating at scale that captures the decreasingcosts of solar, battery and LEDs coupled with inno-vative financing and ultra-efficient appliances. Wedon't have to make a great mental leap to see thatsolar-plus-storage solves many more energy prob-lems for many more households than it does to-day," he said.

The idea that household distributed energyservices are not “real" energy misses the point.Companies like Off-Grid Electric and M-Kopa havealready launched high-efficiency TV sets, satellitedecoders and base energy stations that powerthese and other appliances in a way that meetscustomers' needs.

Companies are also developing high-efficiency

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refrigeration and other white goods that run onsingle-digit load percentages. These and othersimilar breakthroughs are examples of reverseinnovation that will challenge notions about powerrequirements.

"This is real delivery of energy as far as thecustomer is concerned -- they get exactly whatthey need, and not more, so they do not pay formore. From a rich-world perspective, it might notseem like the 'real energy' solution, but that isnonsense. You would not say that a small businessrunning their numbers on Excel rather than Oracleis not using 'real software,'” said Larson.

When examining how we achieve universalhousehold energy access, it is critical to assess theuse cases of households and end-use efficienciesand not just the load capability and levelized costof energy services.

As 1.2 billion people exit energy poverty andenter into the modern energy world, high-efficiency appliances and energy access servicesthat are engineered to meet customer demands atthe right price points are necessary to accommo-date power demand at scale.

It’s time we break with the calcified mentalitythat bigger is always better. Bigger and excessive isusually inefficient and expensive. We shouldinstead think about how to stretch a small amountof power a long, long way and yet get more ofwhat we want. This is accomplished through desig-ning energy solutions and approaching energychallenges with a mentality that doesn’t limit us toold thinking.

“The world is very different today than whenEdison created the light bulb," said Helgesen.“Technological developments in efficient appli-ances and distributed energy are surpassing tradi-tional energy distribution systems. Now is not thetime to fix the grid -- it is time to reimagine it.”

This is the kind of thinking that will bring uni-versal energy access to the world.

Daniel Tomlinson is Access-to-energy entrepreneurand 2012 Echoing Green Fellow.

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Izael P. Da Silva

The four barriers for the diffusion of solar energytechnologies in Africa: Trends in Kenya

he diffusion of Modern Energy Technologies(MET) in Africa has been found to be verylow especially for solar energy systems. The

installed solar PV capacity in Africa is a major issueof concern globally. This low trend in technologyadoption is of global interest because Africa enjoyssome of the best solar radiation levels in the worldaveraging between 4-6kWh/m2/day for most ofthe year.

It was initially speculated that the low uptakeof solar technology was associated with the conti-nent's high poverty levels and low awareness ofand limitations in technical capacity; nevertheless,the introduction of Mobile Telephony Technology(MTT) has cast some doubt on those speculationsdue to the rapid assimilation and diffusion of thetechnology in several African countries. Lack ofsuitable environment, lack of affordable funds, lackof awareness and lack of capacity building seemsto sum up the barriers to PV penetration and thusexplain the African PV paradox whereby the bestserved countries in terms of solar radiation are thelowest in terms of PV installations.

IntroductionThe diffusion of solar and other modern energy

technologies (MET) in African countries isconsiderably low with the solar penetration raterising from 1% in 2010 to between 3% and 4% in2013. Paradoxically, countries on the African con-tinent that lie within the Sunbelt region are expo-

sed to the best solar radiation regime globally,receiving between 4 and 6kWh/m2/day in mostmonths of the year.

The Sunbelt is defined as the region of the pla-net that is found within ± 35o latitude. Incidentally,despite having the best solar resource, this regionmakes up only 9% of the global installed PV capaci-ty today. Moreover, the Sunbelt region is home to75% of the world's population and represents 40%of the global electricity demand. In essence, theregion has the highest demand for electricity ser-vices today and 80% of the expected global electri-city demand growth will come from Sunbelt count-ries.

In addition, a survey carried out by the Euro-pean Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) in2010 into 66 countries within the Sunbelt regionrevealed that the region actually had the potentialto achieve an installed solar PV capacity of 1.1TWby 2030. However, the EPIA report indicated thatseveral changes and actions would be necessary inorder for such an ambitious capacity to be achie-ved. This projection is pegged on significant chan-ges in the regulatory issues in the 66 Sunbeltcountries as well as significant drops in the LCOEfrom solar systems.

In the past, the poor diffusion of MET in the de-veloping countries - particularly in rural or remoteareas - was attributed to poverty and ignorance.However, recent market dynamics have challengedthis theory in that the Mobile Telephony Technolo-

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gies (MTT) industry has had great success in mar-ket penetration in the same environments andunder tougher conditions due to the lack of sub-sidization or donor support.

In order to identify major challenges of solartechnology diffusion in Africa, a review of previousdocumentation into the subject of the penetrationof METs in Africa was undertaken. Special empha-sis was placed on solar energy technologies andthe limitations of adoption in the Sunbelt region asopposed to the regions outside the sunbelt zonethat have had better performance in the imple-mentation of solar energy projects, despite havinglimited solar energy resources.

Once the challenges on the global scope hadbeen identified, more reviews were carried out tofind out what the specific challenges were in theregional settings. These reviews saw the evaluationof factors affecting the penetration of MET in Ken-ya and Uganda. As it was identified that the penet-ration of METs was significantly surpassed by thediffusion of MTTs, a study of the factors that con-tributed to such a variation was warranted. For thisstudy, a review of research carried out to investiga-te the diffusion patterns of the MTTs versus theMETs was undertaken in order to compare the twotechnologies and pick out key lessons.

The four challenges facing diffusion of METsThe limited diffusion of solar technology in Afri-

ca can be attributed to a wide range of factorsassociated with players on every level of the valuechain from the end user through to the investors.Despite the global viability and growth in the solarenergy market in the developed world, Africancountries continue to lag behind, representing lessthan 1% of the market demand for solar energy.

A study carried out in Kenya in 2013 (Lay et al.,2013) sought to define the cross-sectional energyladder as it applies to the choice of lighting fuel inKenyan households. The various factors affectingthis fuel choice were examined, and were found toinclude education level and income bracket of thehousehold heads, the average household expendi-ture, ownership of the dwelling, potential gridaccess, rural/urban setting of the household andthe prevalence of solar home systems (SHS) in thearea.

The leading factors affecting the transition fromtraditional to modern fuels for lighting were found

to be the income levels, level of education andproximity to existing SHS. These results were cor-roborated with other studies in order to zero in onthe larger factors at play in the African countries.Furthering Africa's research into the penetration ofPico PV lighting systems in rural Africa, a similararray of challenges were unearthed, includingAccess to Finance, Distribution Challenges, Consu-mer Education, Market Spoilage due to substan-dard products, Government Policies and After SaleSupport.

Consolidating the factors listed in these reports,we found that the challenges affecting the growthof the solar energy industry in Africa can begrouped into the following four categories:

1. Enabling environment2. Access to finance/affordability3. Awareness4. Access to technical support services

1. Enabling environmentAn enabling environment refers to the preva-

lent conditions in a country or region that supportthe growth of the industry in question. The enab-ling environment is mostly a function of the natio-nal government and regulatory bodies. Nationalpolicies are an effective way to gauge the viabilityof a business model from one country to another.

In Europe and the US, several solar energy pro-jects came to realization due to subsidies and taxbreaks as well as other supportive policies in theearly stages of development. In 2012, nine of the10 leading countries in solar power installationssaw a drop in small-scale investments in the in-dustry because their governments cut back onsubsidies.

Kenya's Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC)develops new energy generation centres based onthe Least Cost Power Development Plan (LCPDP).The latest version of the LCPDP, released in March2011, covers the 20-year period from 2011 to2031. Methodologically, the report utilizes a least-cost planning approach aimed at delivering therequired level of electricity supply at any givenpoint in time at the lowest overall economic cost.

Looking closely at the LCPDP for Kenya, it isclear that there is no provision for the generationof electricity from solar energy resources at anypoint in the projected 20-year period. The decisionto omit solar energy sources from the electricity

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supply projections was based on previous assump-tions that rendered solar too expensive in thissetting. The LCPDP consequently stresses the "gre-at potential for the use of solar energy throughoutthe year because of [the country's] strategic locati-on near the equator" in its current state, the planlimits the solar energy applications to SHS, solarwater heating and other off-grid uses in rural areasfar from the grid.

This exclusion clearly sends the message: "Weare not interested in Solar Energy!" to the industry.However, this stance is changing because of sup-port for solar energy from the European Union(Africa EU Energy Partnership) and the PoweringAfrica from the American Government.

2. Access to finance/affordabilityAccess to finance has been defined as the most

significant challenge to the penetration of solarenergy technology in Africa. The effects of limitedfinancing options are felt on all levels of the distri-bution value chain from the manufacturer throughto the importers, distributors, dealers and finallythe end user 11. The lack of detailed informationabout the solar industry in African countries is amajor impediment to foreign direct investment.Limited awareness of market trends and rates ofreturn along with the fears of political instabilityraises the risk elements for investors.

These factors lead to the development of a'High Perceived Risk' level that results in overallinvestor uncertainty. However, in 2012, invest-ments into the solar industry in developing count-ries went up by 19%, resulting in the introductionof $112 billion into the market. This was the hig-hest ever investment in solar energy in Africa.

The limitations of Access to Finance can also beattributed to the Cost of Capital which hasemerged as a major impediment to the growth ofthe solar energy in developing countries. Cost ofcapital is the cost of the funding used to finance abusiness and is dependent on the mode of finan-cing as well as the policies at the firm or lendingorganization. It is usually determined by the ratioof the cost of equity to cost of debt capital used tofinance the venture. It has been found that in Afri-ca, high interest rates combined with the cost oftechnology and foreign expertise have greatlyaffected the cost of capital for solar energy pro-jects.

Nevertheless, in 2012, the share of foreign in-vestment in the African solar industry rose signifi-cantly by up to 19% with Kenya being one of themajor beneficiaries. At the same time, investmentin the US and Europe dropped a notch due to po-licy uncertainty and cuts in subsidies on renewableenergy. These emerging trends could significantlyaffect the cost of capital in the region and furtherlower the LCOE of solar energy.

Furthermore, with strategic negotiations andfinancing models, larger solar projects can achievea lower cost of capital in Kenya as well as the restof Africa.

3. AwarenessConsumer education has been highlighted as

one of the top three challenges facing the penetra-tion of PV systems in rural areas in Kenya and therest of Africa. There is a great need to raise theawareness levels of the target market of the ener-gy generation options available and their benefits,as well as the hazards involved with using the moredangerous dirty fuels to light their homes. Theshortage of entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneu-rial capacity in the energy sector has limited themarketing of solar products and other METs to theend user.

Finally, the aspect of awareness that is mostchallenging to overcome is caused by Market Spoi-lage. Market Spoilage occurs due to the presenceof substandard products in the market. In a studycarried out by the Lumina Project on LED torches inEast Africa, it was found that 90% of the usersexperienced quality-related problems during thesix-month study period. Poor-quality products,although cheap, increase the difficulty of marketpenetration because the end users no longer trustthe technology.

In 2009, Lighting Africa began testing the quali-ty of solar products available in the African market.The study revealed that 13 out of the 14 Pico PVproducts in circulation did not pass their qualitytests.

A second round of tests was carried out in 2012when the number of products in the market hadrisen to 120. The results were similar in that only46 of the products passed the quality tests. Con-sumer education is an expensive hurdle that has tobe overcome for any solar energy product to deve-lop a client base, especially in rural Africa.

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4. Access to technical support servicesAvailability of technical assistance in the proxi-

mity of the end users is a key factor in counteringthe effects of market spoilage. The presence oftechnicians well versed in trouble-shooting, repairand maintenance of the MET systems in the locali-ty increases the trust of the consumers. Due to thenovelty of most of the solar energy products, it isimportant to develop local maintenance capacity inthe area where the products are being marketed.Nevertheless, the scattered nature of BOP consu-mers coupled with their low buying power makesthe notion of setting up service centres in the dis-tribution regions unsustainable.

ConclusionIn order to develop solutions to counter the

'African Energy Challenge', innovative approaches

towards increasing the penetration of alternativesources of energy should be implemented on alllevels of the value chain. Green credit lines, taxexemptions and the introduction of concepts suchas Feed-In Tariffs and net metering (both contemp-lated in the upcoming Energy Bill 2015), training oftechnicians throughout the geography of Kenyaand school campaigns can help mainstream PVpenetration and make Africa the next big destina-tion for the growing PV industries of China, Ameri-ca and Europe.

Prof. Izael Pereira Da Silva is Director of theStrathmore Energy Research Centre (SERC).

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Jacqueline Novogratz

Solving energy poverty through an off-grid solarelectricity revolution

nergy poverty is an enormous challenge thatwe must address if we are to ensure universalaccess to affordable and clean energy. More

than one billion people currently live without ac-cess to electricity. Changing this fact requires us toinvolve the entire energy ecosystem and combatthe status quo within governments, the kerosenemafias and customers. However, the decliningcosts of solar energy and the ubiquity of mobiletechnology offer a unique opportunity to rise to thischallenge.

Jacqueline Novogratz argues that we can makeno more important bet than building an off-gridenergy ecosystem aimed at providing energy tothose living in poverty without electricity.

In a world of growing interconnectedness, weare forced to face the stark inequality of other’sdivergent experiences – including the impact ofclimate change on the poor. Sustainable economicdevelopment and global peace mean not just theabsence of violence but increasing opportunity andpotential for humans to thrive. To ensure universalaccess to affordable, reliable and modern energyservices by 2030, the world can make no moreimportant bet than on bringing off-grid solarelectricity to the 1.2 billion people on Earth cur-rently living in darkness.

Imagine a world in which the rooftop of nearlyevery household in the developing world holds asmall solar panel to provide not only light, but

electricity to charge their phones, radios, TVs, andeventually, refrigerators, small appliances, andstoves. Even the lowest-income households wouldhave access to basic electricity, thus saving moneyotherwise spent on kerosene. Imagine a world inwhich households far from the grid can accessclean, affordable electricity by turning theirrooftops into energy generators. As householdsincrease energy consumption, they earn and savemore, thus contributing to a positive trajectory.

Now, imagine micro-grids with smart meterslinked to cell phones that utilise mobile payments;and new DC appliances, all of which could helphouseholds, enable small business creation, andencourage other increasingly productive uses ofclean electricity. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, 621million people are not currently connected to theexisting power grid.

Despite US$ 31.5bn already committed to gridextension through 2018, progress on reaching thepoor thus far has been particularly slow, expensiveand reliant on non-renewables, including dieseland coal. Daunting as this may seem, the preci-pitous drop in the cost of solar energy and theubiquity of mobile technology on the continentpresent an enormous opportunity. Since 2009,photovoltaic solar module prices have droppedmore than 75%, contributing to rapidly decliningcosts across the solar industry.

Our work at Acumen over the last decade hastaught us that low-income customers will pay for

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products that are affordable and add value. d.lightalone has brought solar products to more than 54million customers and is currently on track to reach100 million by 2020.

Companies like M-KOPA, Mobisol, and Off-GridElectric are proving the growing demand and fi-nancial viability of pay-as-you-go in-home solarsystems. These are just a handful of the successfulinnovations of the past few years, both in thetechnology and in the business models that bringsuch products and services to market. In the midstof these rapid changes, it is possible to see off-gridsolar energy not simply as a bridge to the grid, butas a destination in itself.

However, the accelerated evolution of this sec-tor has revealed a number of ways in which thisenergy ecosystem is broken. This affords a challen-ge and an opportunity to rethink the ways that wecan support its successful maturation. The primaryobstacle is that governments are too focused onthe historical solution – extending the existing grid– which is extremely expensive, and will likely takedecades instead of years.

We have had some limited success in movingmillions of people to the first rung of the energyladder to solar lighting, all with a private sectorapproach. But the prospects of successfully scalingthis model without involving the entire energyecosystem are unclear. Large chunks of the valuechain – mainly in marketing and distribution –remain missing or weak. There are too many small,mostly under-funded companies trying to do toomuch with too little capital.

Entrepreneurs building an off-grid energy eco-system will have to combat an entrenched statusquo in three areas: government, with a vestedinterest in extending the grid; diesel and kerosenemafias; and customers themselves, who know theins and outs of working with biofuels every day.Fear of change is the greatest ally of the statusquo, but intrepid entrepreneurs committed toleading the charge have an opportunity to offer anattractive alternative to the people who need itmost.

The international community will need to le-verage two trends – the falling cost of solar, andthe advancements in mobile technology – to movedistributed solar energy sharply beyond this inflec-tion point. The falling cost of solar allows high-quality, affordable, and most importantly, scalable

solutions to be made available to consumers asthey move up the energy ladder. Mobile technolo-gy advances enable access to and engagementwith those same consumers through metering,billing, and payments enabled by their existingmobile networks.

There are a number of ways to accelerate thisnew approach, but it is paramount to take a hu-man-centred approach that recognises the poor ascustomers instead of passive recipients of charity.Before we provide solutions and support demand,we must understand the energy needs of the poor,their purchasing power and how we can movethem up the energy ladder and into the modernenergy market.

Social enterprises are closest to these low-income customers and are driving innovation tofind faster, more efficient solutions to provide thepoor with new opportunities and the promise of abrighter future. But we need to bridge the fundinggap by investing catalytic capital in this under-invested sector. That will require a mix of strategicgrants and long-term investment capital. The moreprecious of the two is grant capital structured in away that can leverage significant private invest-ment.

To grow these companies, entrepreneurscommitted to serving the market require a uniquemix of early-stage start-up capital (financed byphilanthropic-backed patient capital investors),working capital (which should at least in part bemade available in local currencies with governmentguarantees, credit enhancements and other con-cessionary vehicles) and consumer financing. Gua-rantees should also be utilised as incentives forlocal banks to create working capital facilities inlocal currencies − something woefully absent fromthe African energy sector, particularly in countrieswith significant devaluations of their currencies.

Specifically, grant funding is needed to createfirst-loss reserves to make bets on making the off-grid market more attractive to private investors.Grant capital is also important for technical as-sistance, both for management (building real talentin this nascent sector, especially at middle andsenior levels) and for the R&D needed to bringbetter, lower-cost technologies (metering andbatteries) to the market to help companies buildupon their models and attract outside invest-ment.

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At the macro level, governments will also havea substantial role to play in ensuring an enablingenvironment for early-stage energy companiesoperating in developing markets. Reducing tariffson imported components and guaranteeing bulkorders for solar products can facilitate more ambi-tious research and design while concessionaryfinancing and discounts can lower prices evenfurther.

This will not be easy. Igniting a solar revolutionaimed at the poor will require innovative fundsthat invest in and support solutions across theenergy ecosystem.

Long-term investment funds combined withadequate technical assistance funding will enable afocused, accountable push not only to strengthenindividual companies but to build solutions acrossthe value chain – from marketing, financing anddistribution to service/repair. Used correctly, thesefunds can create the models needed to show theworld that off-grid solar solutions not only trans-form billions of lives but do so in ways that are

cheaper, more efficient, faster and cleaner than byextending the traditional grids.

The success of the full off-grid solar ecosystemwill provide energy access to large communities ina financially and environmentally sustainable way.In addition to the direct impact on the lives ofmillions of people, a fully functioning ecosystemwill prove to governments and the market thevalue of this model for the future.

We have a chance to solve long-term energypoverty and avert a climate crisis. There is no bet-ter way than ensuring universal access to clean,affordable electricity. We don’t have dignity unlessall of us have dignity, and there’s no better bet wecan make than this.

Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and CEO ofAcumen.

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Sohail Hasnie

Off-grid solar can be game-changer for electricity accessin Central Asia

olar rooftops are popping up everywhere.Many consumers in the developed world aregenerating and producing their own electrici-

ty, and leaving their grid connection as a lifestylechoice. Off-grid electrification is today a viablealternative to grid-based electricity.

Unfortunately, more than 700 million people inAsia and the Pacific still have no access to electrici-ty, and a large number of them are in two CentralAsia Regional Cooperation (CAREC) Program mem-ber countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Peopleliving in the remote mountainous areas of otherCAREC countries also have poor access to reliableelectricity.

Pakistanis alone spend about $2.3 billion an-nually on candles, kerosene lamps, and battery-powered flashlights. Kerosene lamps cost up to 30times more than the inefficient incandescent bulb,and 100 times more than compact fluorescent andlight-emitting diode (LED) lamps. In some poorhouseholds, kerosene may account for up to 25%of their family’s monthly income, and people in off-grid areas often travel to electrified towns to char-ge their phones for a fee. Furthermore, kerosenelamps emit toxic fumes, polluting the air insidehomes and leading to lung and eye problems.

Kerosene lamps provide insufficient light forwork or study, and their naked flames cause manyaccidents and injuries. Despite this, according tothe World Bank on a global scale 1.2 billion peopleliving without access to the power grid spend

about $27 billion annually on fossil fuel-poweredstopgap technologies.

Small (30–50 watt) off-grid solar lighting sys-tems can be an alternative to kerosene lamps. Agood example outside of CAREC is Bangladesh,where about 4.5 million households have replacedkerosene lamps with small solar home lightingsystems.

Beyond lighting, modern life requires the use ofmobile phone chargers, electric fans, televisions,and refrigerators. In off-grid areas, these appli-ances can only be powered either with electricitygenerated by diesel generators or a larger off-gridsolar system with lead acid batteries. Both of theseoptions are too expensive for the average house-hold in rural areas in Central Asia.Diesel generationis an electrocution risk and requires expert know-ledge to manage the generation set and a largefuel inventory for reliable supply, while lead acidbatteries need replacing every 1–3 years.

Recent technological advances and price reduc-tions in three areas—lithium-ion batteries, solarpower, and energy-efficient appliances—havemade larger off-grid solar systems more economi-cally viable than extending the main transmissionand distribution networks, especially in the case ofexpensive diesel generation-supplied grids. Withthis technology, millions of people may be able tostop using kerosene lamps and start producingtheir own electricity, leapfrogging the long wait forconnection to the grid. As large solar panels have

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become cheaper and suppliers of lithium-ion bat-teries are ready to provide guarantees for morethan 5 years, it is possible to design a system thatcan power all basic modern conveniences in off-grid areas.

Off-grid solar may soon be preferred over grid-connected electricity, even in countries with 100%electrification. For example, a typical new connec-tion in rural Afghanistan is estimated to cost about$1,200 (plus regular payments for energy consu-med), compared with a $1,500 off-grid kit thatincludes power generation for basic applianceswith no additional payment other than basic main-tenance for 5 years. According to a recent WorldBank report, the global market for off-grid electrici-ty will be about $3.1 billion by 2020, reachingabout 100 million households. This is leading to ahuge paradigm shift: off-grid electrification andmicro-grids may no longer be a stopgap measureand even become the most affordable option inmany developing countries.

ADB recently approved new funding for regio-nal technical assistance to demonstrate the techni-cal and financial viability of this new technologycombination in the CAREC region, and encouragethe off-grid community to move from basic lightingto a range of basic battery-operated appliancesusing larger solar panels and long-life lithium-ionbatteries.

The development challenge is to create a mar-ket for low-voltage direct current (DC) appliances,quality batteries, and reliable solar panels in CARECcountries at reasonable prices. Solar panels pro-

duce DC electricity, and most off-grid systemsconvert DC to alternating current (AC), for whicheveryday appliances are designed. DC appliancesare affordable and easily available in developingcountries and online, but are not readily availablein the CAREC region. In some cases, expensive low-quality products are preventing consumers in thesecountries from scaling up off-grid electrification.Other universal barriers—such as high up-frontcosts, lack of financing and awareness, institutionalbarriers, and perceived risks—will be assessedduring implementation and scale-up.

The project will promote DC off-grid solar kitsand equipment by demonstrating the viability ofthis technology, developing knowledge materials,and building capacities for mainstreaming thisinitiative. By using lithium-ion batteries and LEDs,the system will be safer and healthier than kerose-ne, produce brighter lights, extend product lives,and lower life cycle costs.

We like to hear about any similar initiatives youmay know, and your ideas about our project. Off-grid solar is the ONLY way to bring electricity to allby 2020.

Sohail Hasnie is Principal Energy Specialist, Centraland West Asia Department, at ADB.

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Adnan Z. Amin

Off-grid renewables: the sustainable route to100% global electricity access

or those of us living with electricity, it is easyto forget the social and economic impact ofgoing without.

Power shortages cut economic growth by 2% to4% annually. Households without electricity pay 60to 80 times more per kilowatt-hour for energy-related products - like charcoal, candles and kero-sene - than people in New York or London.

Health clinics without electricity struggle to re-frigerate medicine and exposure to smoke fromwood-fired cook stoves cause more than 4 millionpremature deaths each year.

Great strides have been made in recent de-cades to increase global access to electricity, butthere is still too large a gap between the haves andthe have-nots. More than one billion people -roughly 15% of the global population - still lackaccess, and to achieve access for all by 2030, thepace of expansion must double.

It was with this goal in mind that nearly 600 off-grid renewable energy practitioners and leadersfrom the public and private sector gathered inNairobi, Kenya last week for the third InternationalOff-Grid Renewable Energy Conference (IOREC).

The event was entirely focused on boostingelectricity access through the development of off-grid renewables, as estimates suggest these soluti-ons will provide the majority of additional genera-tion needed to achieve 100% access.

After two days of discussions, panels and deba-tes, it became clear that achieving universal access

through off-grid renewables has never been morepossible than it is today.

We are already seeing early examples of off-grid success

In Bangladesh, a solar home system program-me deployed 280,000 systems in six years between2002 and 2008. Today, it deploys the same numberin fewer than five months. The programme nowbenefits over 18 million beneficiaries - 11% of thetotal population.

In Africa, M-KOPA Solar has connected morethan 375,000 homes in Kenya, Tanzania and Ugan-da to solar power with 550 more added daily. For adeposit of USD 35, buyers get the system thenmake 365 daily payments of $0.43 through mobilemoney system M-Pesa. When it is all paid off, thesystem belongs to the buyer.

So why are these solutions booming? The pro-mise of off-grid renewables is broadly captured bythree main cases:

Thanks to dramatic cost reductions in recentyears, renewable technologies are now the defaultcost-competitive choice for off-grid installations,both stand-alone and mini-grids, in most rural andperi-urban areas. They can be significantly cheaperthan diesel-fired generation or kerosene-basedconventional lighting.

In Bangladesh for example, the solar home pro-gramme replaces 242,000 tons of kerosene, saving$300 million annually. Likewise, if Nigeria used

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modern off-grid lighting solutions, it would savemore than $1.4 billion annually. What's more,costs are expected to decline even further in thecoming years.

The social and environmental caseThe deployment of off-grid renewables directly

creates jobs, and not just for the installers andthose working within the renewable industry, butalso for those who gain meaningful employmentthrough industries created from newly gainedaccess to reliable electricity supply.

IRENA estimates that at least 4.5 million jobscan be created in the off-grid electricity sector by2030, in positions ranging from entrepreneurs andtechnicians, to installers and distributors.

Efforts made to increase energy access also be-nefit other sectors critical to human development.Access to electricity can improve the accessibilityand reliability of the water supply for drinking andirrigation. Solar irrigation solutions can help in-crease farmer yields by 300%. It can also facilitateextension of basic rural healthcare services andenable the outreach of telecommunication servicesin rural or island contexts.

Another compelling case for off-grid rene-wables is the impact, or rather lack of impact, ithas on the environment. The energy sector ac-counts for two-thirds of global emissions. As such,any effort to reduce emissions and mitigate clima-te change must focus heavily on decarbonising theglobal energy system.

IRENA research has found that doubling theglobal share of renewables by 2030 to 36% - com-bined with energy efficiency measures - would cutemissions to the level required to stay on the twodegree pathway as enshrined in the Paris Agree-ment.

Development with off-grid renewables offers apath to leapfrog the polluting route historicallytaken by developed economies -- one that is noteven a feasible option for countries of certain sizesand regions of the world.

Small island states are particularly affected byclimate change, and for many of the 750 millionpeople living in the inhabited 10,000 islandsaround the world, the means or resources for lar-ge-scale energy production and a national gridconnection are limited.

In these cases mini-grids powered with diesel

generators offer a route to energy access. Incorpo-rating renewables into these mini-grids throughthe addition of solar PV, wind turbines, biogas andparticularly biodiesel, is an attainable goal.

Innovative business models driving growthThankfully, the strong business case for

deploying off-grid renewables in rural areas isdriving innovative business models, which is en-couraging growth in the sector.

Key market development initiatives, includingthe Green Mini-Grids Market Development Pro-gramme, Beyond the Grid Initiative, and the ECO-WAS Programme on Access to Sustainable EnergyServices, are steps in the right direction. But toachieve scale, off-grid grid renewable energy deve-lopment must transform from a project-by-projectendeavour to one that is market driven, a messagethat resonated strongly at IOREC last week.

This will require collective efforts to create anenabling environment that supports the scale-upof energy access efforts through private sectorparticipation. This includes adopting an effectivepolicy and regulatory framework, along with tailo-red business and financing models and adaptingtechnologies to the rural context.

If the enabling environment is appropriate, off-grid solutions can be deployed rapidly to extendelectricity access for meeting basic needs but alsofor promoting productive uses. These enablingpolicies can also create a more secure environmentto encourage investment. We currently invest $9billion a year on energy access, but five times thatis needed to achieve universal access.

But this investment is coming in - in fast-increasing volumes. In the last three years, invest-ments in the off-grid solar sector increased 15-fold,and private sector players are raising substantialfinancing from impact investors, private equityfunds, corporates, government development fi-nance, donors and crowd funding.

'A practical, actionable solution to today'smost pressing issues'

These early examples demonstrate that, withthe right policies in place to spur investment, off-grid renewables can offer a practical, actionablesolution to today's most pressing economic, socialand environmental issues.

This complementarity presents a compelling

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case for policy-makers to adopt a more holisticapproach to energy access and to include off-gridrenewables as a means to stimulate economy-widedevelopment, fight poverty and improvelivelihoods, and protect the planet from the dange-rous effects of climate change.

Adnan Z. Amin is the Director-General of the Inter-national Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

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Andrew Herscowitz

4 Lessons from Power Africa

his month, dozens of African heads of stateand CEOs from the United States and Africagathered in New York for the U.S.-Africa

Business Forum — three years after PresidentObama launched Power Africa, a U.S. government-led partnership that aims to double access toelectricity in sub-Saharan Africa. Here are four keylessons we’ve learned since the launch of the initi-ative:

1. Renewable energy is cost competitive withfossil fuels.

Solar power is being offered at 3 and 4 U.S.cents per kilowatt hour throughout the world, butcountries in Africa continue debating whether toprioritize the development of their sometimes vastfossil fuels or to focus on renewables to generatepower.

These vibrant domestic debates regardingcountries’ proposed power development paths aregood because there’s no easy answer today. Usual-ly, the answer is that the country should developboth.

It’s true that the economics of renewables arebecoming more compelling as technology impro-ves and prices come down. As countries link to oneanother through transmission lines, they are betterable to balance the power load shifts often associ-ated with renewables, and the interconnectionsallow even small countries to harness indigenousrenewable resources at scale by creating a largermarket. As battery storage improves and comesdown in price, the case for renewables that can

offer baseload power becomes even more com-pelling.

One study has suggested that more coal plantsin Africa will be decommissioned than commissio-ned starting in 2025 — less than 10 years fromnow, while gas and renewable generation willcontinue to grow. Today, solar power projectsalready can be up and running in less than twoyears, compared to the five- to 10-year timeframefor other large fossil fuel and large hydropowerprojects. And very large projects — fossil fuels orrenewables — often are delayed and can havesignificant cost overruns.

What’s clear, though, is that the era of rene-wables has arrived, and everyone should be loo-king seriously at these projects.

2. The best price isn’t always the best value.When developing power, quality is important.

The same government officials making procure-ment decisions do not buy the least expensivecomputers, mobile phones, etc. for themselves.They buy the best products. No one should saddlea country with poor quality power projects that arenot dependable and that will require expensive,unpredictable maintenance. The U.S. Trade & De-velopment Agency (USTDA)’s Global ProcurementInitiative helps policymakers make procurementdecisions based on life-cycle costs and best value.

While every country should work towards com-petitive procurements, fairly negotiated and trans-parent bilaterally negotiated deals also can offercountries the opportunity to familiarize themselves

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with new technologies and test the waters. Sho-wing that a project can get across the finish line ina country will make the country more attractive toinvestment — driving down the cost of capital andmaking future projects even less expensive. Pricesalso will come down through competitive procu-rements and improvements in technology.

3. Energy is a commodity, and people will paywhat it’s worth.

Nearly every utility in sub-Saharan Africa is indire financial straits. Raising electricity prices ispolitically unpopular, but what can be worse iswhen politicians heavily subsidize or even giveaway electricity to people who can afford to payfor it. Once someone gets something for free, theyrarely want to pay for it again.

Poor people in rural areas are already gladlypaying for off-grid power at sometimes severaltimes the cost of equivalent grid power. Hundredsof millions of people in Africa pay for mobile phoneservices and sometimes even satellite televisionwithout subsidies. What people want is dependabi-lity. Nobody wants to pay for inexpensive powerthat gets cut off for hours, days, or weeks at atime. If the utilities were to charge the actual costof power, they would have the resources availableto develop a dependable power system.

4. Investments must be predictable.Over the last year, we have seen commodity

prices plummet and currencies in sub-SaharanAfrica fluctuate greatly, making the investmentclimate more unfriendly than usual. But thesemacroeconomic factors can be priced into a deal.Unpredictability however, cannot.

When a government official suddenly cancels anegotiated agreement after a project developerhas invested millions of dollars or when the

government insists on new requirements that willscare off investors, governments only hurt them-selves. The African market comprises more than 50countries, and investors will place their bets oncountries where they have a dependable and pre-dictable government counterpart. Among the mostsuccessful markets in sub-Saharan Africa for powerinvestments is Kenya. Why? Because the rules ofthe game are clear and because investors get paidon time.

During the 2016 African Development Bank An-nual Meetings, Rwandan President Paul Kagameurged everyone to take action because there is nogood reason why everyone cannot have access topower. Africa has the natural resources and willinginvestors to help bring universal electricity accessto the continent. We should all feel a sense ofurgency to overcome the many unnecessaryobstacles to moving deals forward and to lightingand powering Africa.

Power Africa’s goals are achievable. Success re-quires strong, coordinated, and continued part-nership. We all have a role to play to ensure thatmillions of people will not unnecessarily remain inthe dark for decades to come. The countries thatemerge from the dark will be those that offer apredictable, forward-leaning, open and fair in-vestment climate. The Power Africa Tracking Tool(PATT), which is available for download on yourApple device, shows that there’s real deal flow andreal money willing to invest.

Andrew Herscowitz is the Coordinator for PowerAfrica (@aherscowitz).

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Shamshad Akhtar

Energy access and a light-bulb moment: How stronger col-laboration on renewables will benefit the Asia-Pacific re-gion

he emergence of new ideas, technologicaladvancements and innovative market-drivenfinancing solutions has lent confidence to the

idea that universal access to energy services isattainable. This is particularly good news in theAsia-Pacific region, where, despite making signifi-cant contributions to global growth and povertyreduction since 2000, nearly half a billion citizensstill have no access to modern energy, principallyin rural and far-flung areas. Three-quarters of the-se people live in South Asia alone. Some 70 percent of the Pacific island households are un-electrified, a level similar to sub-Saharan Africa.The lack of electricity and clean cooking optionsmarginalises predominantly remote and slumcommunities who are trapped in energy poverty,preventing them from stepping on the first rung ofthe ladder to prosperity.

There are a range of approaches, options andsources which, if effectively exploited, can help theAsia-Pacific broaden energy access. One of thegame-changing elements for energy access is Asia’semergence as producer and provider of renewableenergy technology, with investment in renewablesreaching $160 billion in 2015, accounting for overhalf the global total.

Renewable energy options are poised to resha-pe the energy access challenge. In particular, solarpower with its low-cost advantages and wides-

pread applicability will pay a major role, as it offersboth grid-based centralised solutions as well asdecentralised applications such as solar lanterns,solar home systems, and solar-powered mini-grids.

This year, three large-scale solar proposals inthe Middle East and South America have contrac-ted their solar-generated power for US three centsper kilowatt-hour, which is cheaper than any othersource of energy. The marketability of solar energyfurther benefits from technological advancementsin energy storage, driven by utility power andelectric vehicle markets. These developments willhave positive spillover on the energy access sector.

In many countries of Asia and the Pacific, thedecentralised power option offers lower costs thanextending the grid into remote locations, whichinfluences long-term energy planning scenarios ofcountries. These options include mini-grids, hybridsystems, biogas and micro-hydro power, depen-ding on costs, local geography and resource availa-bility.

Reliability and scalability require an enhancedrole of the private sector to find the most suitablelocal energy access solutions and to mobilise inno-vative finance and business models. Energy accesssolution providers already promote creative soluti-ons, however, the private sector’s role in the provi-sion of energy access has been limited, accountingfor only 18 per cent of total investment. To bring

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private capital, technology and expertise to energyaccess, partnerships between public sector andmultilateral financing agencies need to offer theright enabling policy environment and a combina-tion of incentives including risk mitigation frame-works, loan guarantees, and other supportive cre-dit enhancements.

The potential of private investment to promoteenergy access should not be underestimated. Theso-called “bottom of the pyramid” energy userscurrently spend $37 billion on energy services suchas kerosene, batteries, or candles, which are ofteninefficient and more costly than clean alternatives.Many pioneering private sector firms have develo-ped low-cost energy systems at household or vil-lage scale such as solar lanterns, biogas or micro-hydro systems, and are rolling out business modelswith product, process and distribution innovations.Across the Asia-Pacific, rural micro-credit is fundingenergy access, including Bangladesh’s GrameenShakti which has funded half a million solar homesystems. Development of indigenous technologycapacity in Nepal has lowered equipment costs forbiogas and micro-hydro systems. India has levera-ged public-private partnerships in its rural electrifi-cation efforts, bringing electricity to 32 millionhouseholds over the last decade. Local provision ofenergy can have a catalytic effect, leading to eco-nomic growth and increased demand for other

products and services that can be met by thesecompanies, leading to growing business opportuni-ties.

Achieving the goals of poverty eradication iscritically linked to enhancing energy access for thepoor. The recent adoption by G20 Ministers of theAction Plan for Enhancing Energy Access in Asiaand the Pacific, supported by the UN Economic andSocial Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP),will assist the region in adopting the appropriatepolicy framework to scale-up the private sector’srole in enhancement of energy access. As a follow-up to the G20 Action Plan on Energy Access, ES-CAP, with the Energy Market Authority of Singapo-re, is co-organising an Energy Access Forum at theSingapore International Energy Week in October2016. The Forum will provide insights on the chal-lenges and opportunities for countries to enhanceenergy access.

Shamshad Akhtar is an Under-Secretary-General ofthe United Nations and Executive Secretary of theEconomic and Social Commission for Asia and thePacific (ESCAP).

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Peyton Fleming

Africa’s green energy challenge: Mega projects, off-grid orsomewhere in between?

ovember 4, 2016 — A 310-megawatt windfarm sprouting up in a remote, barrenlandscape near Lake Turkana in northern

Kenya has the clean energy world buzzing — andfor good reason.

Africa’s largest wind farm, with 365 toweringturbines, is creating more than 500 stable jobs inan impoverished area where goat herding is oftenthe only work available. It will boost Kenya’selectric grid capacity by about 15 percent, at a farlower cost than the imported oil the local utilitynow uses. And when it begins producing juice nextyear, it will signal to investors and companies thatbig clean energy projects like this are viable in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The impact we’re having makes me feel quiteproud, frankly,” says Phylip Leferink, general ma-nager of Lake Turkana Wind Power, who was allsmiles when I met with him because the 142ndturbine had just been installed.

Megaprojects like these are deeply importantfor solving sub-Saharan Africa’s colossal energyaccess challenges at the pace governments therewant. But they are not the complete answer. Theyare often expensive, take years to build and can’treach everyone. In fact, the US$700 million Turka-na project has been in the works for nearly a de-cade and the exact timeline for finishing the key270-mile (435-kilometer) transmission line is still inquestion. Moreover, all of the electricity is going tosouthern Kenya; none will end up in the power-

starved north, where high-polluting kerosene andcharcoal are used for cooking meals and gettinglight.

So what is the best path to get electricity —preferably, modern green electricity — to the morethan 1 million people in northern Kenya and 620million people in all of sub-Saharan Africa living inthe dark?

I recently spent 12 days traveling in Ghana andKenya trying to find the answer. I was most inte-rested in understanding the extent to which large,grid-scale renewable projects like the Turkanaproject can meet the region’s vast demand forpower and whether more attention should befocused on off-grid renewables and other de-centralized green energy efforts, which are smallerand not linked to the electric grid. The extent towhich the countries can grow their economies withrenewable energy — instead of costlier fossil fuels,a huge contributor to climate change — wasanother key question.

One thing is clear, according to governmentleaders and non-governmental organization ex-perts: Plummeting costs for off-grid renewables —over 80 percent since 2010 for solar photovoltaics— are a game changer. Look no further than theremarkable rise of M-KOPA Solar, a Kenyan com-pany that has seized on Africa’s mobile pho-ne/mobile money phenomena (more than 90 per-cent of Kenyans use mobile phones and more than70 percent are mobile money customers) to bring

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off-grid household solar to 425,000 customersacross East Africa.

A recent study from the public-private collecti-ve Power for All, which aims to accelerate ruralclean energy globally, shows these off-grid techno-logies can be installed in half the time and at one-tenth the cost of large utility-scale projects. Yetdespite this vast potential, off-grid power is beingimpeded by a lack of access to capital, particularlyfrom the World Bank and multilateral developmentbanks, which have long been predisposed to fun-ding big-ticket projects.

“I have no doubt, this is a millions-of-homesproposition,” M-KOPA founder and managing di-rector Jesse Moore told a packed crowd of 500 atthe recent International Off-Grid Renewable Ener-gy Conference in Nairobi hosted by the Internatio-nal Renewable Energy Agency. “But we’re still verymuch a sideshow.”

Kenya: Leader in RenewablesKenya is widely seen as a leader in Africa in

pursuing renewables — both grid and off-grid pro-jects — to tackle the energy access challenge.Three years ago, fewer than 30 percent of Kenyanswere getting electricity from the country’s meager2,000-MW power grid, which was powered prima-rily by fossil fuels. (New England’s population isless than one-third of Kenya’s, yet its grid is about31,000 MW.) To attract power plant developers,the government adopted policies like risk-protection guarantees, standardized power purch-ase agreements and feed-in tariffs — all of whichhelp ensure satisfactory payments for power thatis produced. The government is especially eager totap the country’s bountiful clean energy resourcessuch as geothermal. A 280-MW geothermal powerplant came on line in December in the Great RiftValley, where the continent is gradually tearingapart and so providing easy access to hot waterand steam below the surface, and several moregeothermal projects are in the works. A new 55-MW solar plant was also announced in late Sep-tember.

Government officials are pleased with the pro-gress. “In just three years, we’ve doubled connec-ted customers to the grid,” Kenya’s top energysecretary, Charles Keter, told the off-grid renewab-le energy conference audience. But he concedesKenya will never achieve its universal energy ac-

cess goal by 2020 without off-grid renewables. “Inareas far from the grid, such as northern Kenya, wehave to find other solutions in the near future.”

Companies like M-KOPA, Off-Grid Electric andMobisol are already stepping in — all using pay-as-you-go business models to deliver off-grid solarservices to millions of rural customers.

With a US$30 deposit and daily 50-cent pay-ments, all via the ubiquitous M-PESA mobile mo-ney transfer system, M-KOPA’s customers get asolar panel, a couple of lights, a cellphone chargerand a solar-powered radio. After a year of pay-ments, customers own the system. Customers alsodevelop a credit history enabling them to financelarger solar equipment that can run bigger appli-ances such as televisions and, M-KOPA hopes soon,small refrigerators.

As I walked with two sales representativesthrough Bandani, a poor neighborhood of mudhuts, dirt roads and charcoal stoves in Kisumu inwestern Kenya, half a dozen people ask for M-KOPA brochures. Several others were already usingthe service. One of those customers, ConsonlataAndhiambo Odero, lives in Bandani with four child-ren in a tiny shack and runs a shop selling charcoal,eggs and bread. Discouraged by the constantpower outages, she bought an M-KOPA system amonth ago. Now she has two lamps for her shopand pollution-free light so her kids can read atnight. “I’m very much excited,” she says with a bigsmile.

In just five years, M-KOPA has hired about1,000 workers who are pitching and servicingcustomers in three East African countries. Thecompany’s model is also being expanded to WestAfrica. But despite the company’s growth, a num-ber of Africans can’t even afford the up-front costs.“The [US$30] deposit, that’s the biggest block,”said Edwin Amollo, a field sales manager for thecompany in Kisumu.

Ghana: Catching UpAbout 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) to the

west, Ghana is adopting many of Kenya’s strategiesin expanding energy access. It lags a few yearsbehind, especially when it comes to renewableenergy. But the country is working to catch up.

Ghana’s government is expanding its electricgrid with new power plants, using feed-in tariffs,competitive bidding and power purchase agree-

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ments to attract outside developers and investors.The biggest ones so far have been natural gasplants, which are being fueled by the country’s firstoffshore natural gas field developed last year. Solarprojects are also being added to the grid, butthey’re smaller — including a 20-MW solar PVproject that went on line in April and a second 20-MW project awarded to a South African firm inSeptember. Several more renewable energy pro-jects are in the works up north, including a US$4.5million solar installation for an agriculture venturein Yagaba Basin.

Meanwhile, off-grid solar provider PEG-Ghanalaunched two years ago using M-KOPA’s businessmodel: It targets regions where people have noelectricity or are dissatisfied with constant poweroutages, known locally as dumsors — and wheremobile money is in common use.

“The reason we invested (in Ghana) was nobo-dy was tackling West Africa at all,” said LaurenCochran, director of private investments at theBlue Haven Initiative, a Massachusetts-based in-vestor that helped PEG-Ghana raise US$7.5 millionthis year to expand its business in West Africa.

Forsaking northern Ghana — “It’s too poor,”says PEG-Ghana country manager Simone Vaccari— the company has set up 29 service centers insouthern Ghana that have signed up 14,500customers to date. Sales are growing 20 percent amonth, and PEG-Ghana plans to expand to theIvory Coast soon. “We’re in a good space,” saysVaccari, who hopes to have 100,000 customersacross West Africa by 2018.

Expanding commercially viable clean energymini-grids — small-scale, off-grid networks thatsupply power for individual villages or businesses— is a clear priority in Kenya and Ghana, both atthe government and private sector levels.

Officials at the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment’s Ghana office say there’s a lot ofinterest and potential with grid and off-grid solar,and they credit the government for setting rene-wable energy goals and enacting policies to encou-rage foreign investment. But it remains to be seenif the country can replicate Kenya’s success withrenewables.

Expanding Decentralized Mini-GridsThere is another huge hole that Kenya, Ghana

and other sub-Saharan Africa countries must fill to

achieve their ambitious energy access and cleanenergy goals. While household solar systems likeM-KOPA’s show promise, what about businesses,manufacturers and entire villages looking for big-ger renewable systems instead of relying on aspotty or nonexistent power grid? (Due to Kenya’sunreliable grid, more than half of the country’sbusinesses operate their own diesel-powered ge-nerators.) And what about food suppliers who lackrefrigeration due to power outages and no electri-city at all?

Expanding commercially viable clean energymini-grids — small-scale, off-grid networks thatsupply power for individual villages or businesses— is a clear priority in Kenya and Ghana, both atthe government and private-sector levels. And,again, Kenya’s efforts are further along. This sum-mer, the country’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta,announced plans to install 23 solar mini-grids with9.6 MW of capacity in remote northern Kenya.

Companies such as CrossBoundary Energy arebuilding solar mini-grids for shopping malls, safarilodges and remote hospitals. “In Kenya, 70 percentof electricity consumption is businesses,” saysmanaging partner Matt Tilleard, who is also expan-ding the business to Rwanda. “That’s our niche.”

In Ghana, Black Star Energy is building solar mi-ni-grids serving seven small communities in thecountry’s Ashanti region. The company’s first solar-powered mini-grid, in a cocoa farming area, laun-ched last fall. CEO Nicole Poindexter says a keyadvantage of these systems is that they can runrefrigerators, which are critical for solving regionalfood security challenges. Lack of refrigeration is abig reason why Africa loses enough food annuallyto feed 300 million people, according to the U.N.’sFood and Agriculture Organization.

A Money & Policy Issue, Not a Tech IssueFor all of their early promise, off-grid renewab-

le solutions are still in their infancy. “We havemiles and miles to go. Companies like M-KOPA aredoing amazing things, but their market share is stillde minimus,” says Christine Eibs Singer, director ofglobal advocacy at Power for All.

So what will it take for off-grid renewable solu-tions to seriously start filling the region’s energyaccess gap? It’s less a technology issue than a mo-ney issue.

Broadly speaking, Africa is not attracting nearly

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the investment dollars it needs for energy projectsof all sorts. Current energy-sector investments inAfrica are about US$8 billion a year; that’s lessthan one-sixth the US$55 billion a year that is nee-ded to achieve universal energy access by 2030,according to a 2015 African Progress Report.

And, of the limited money that exists, very littleis going to off-grid renewables, such as householdsolar and mini grids. From 2011 to 2014, only 11percent of World Bank energy access funding and 1percent of African Development Bank fundingwent to decentralized renewables, according to arecent Power for All report.

This funding gap was a clear sore point for par-ticipants at the Nairobi off-grid renewables con-ference.

“If 5 percent of that money went to our sector,you’d see millions more customers getting powerfar more quickly,” says Graham Smith, senior direc-tor of new markets at Off-Grid Electric, a solar

start-up with over 100,000 East African customersthat is relying mostly on private investment fundsand venture capital to expand its business.

Power for All’s Singer says aligning governmentpolicies and key financing institutions behind morebalanced grid and off-grid renewable strategies willbe critical in bringing green power to Africans morequickly and at less cost.

“For overall economic growth in these count-ries, you’re going to need new large-scale power,but you can’t see that as the only solution,” shesaid. “There needs to be more deliberate andconscious integration of both centralized and de-centralized solutions.”

Peyton Fleming is Senior Director at Ceres (US).

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Courtni Wisenbaker-Scheel

How solar can benefit emerging economies/countries

conomic growth differs vastly from countryto country, with roughly 20 percent of theworld’s nations—home to 80 percent of the

entire global population—being classified as anemerging economy.Solar power, though, is starting to prove to be oneof the great economic equalizers, and governmentsacross the world are starting to notice. In fact,solar technology is now being installed twice asfast in emerging economies as it is in the rest ofthe world, and for good reason. Solar power is ableto provide them with a cost-effective solution thatis both stable and independent from outside in-fluences, making it truly beneficial for any growingeconomy.

Energy StabilityWhen a country is struggling financially, there

are only so many funds to divvy out and usuallyinfrastructure tends to be neglected. That’s whymost citizens experience brownouts—a severerestriction on electrical access. Even worse, manycommunities will experience complete blackoutsthat can last for months at a time. In fact, accord-ing to a European Commission report from theJoint Research Centre, the number of people inAfrica without consistent access to energy reached589 million in 2008.

Many emerging countries have large regionsthat are so remote that finding way to provideenergy for them is simply impossible. But solarpower solves both of those issues. When solarfarms are constructed —or when solar panels are

installed on homes or businesses—then spottycoverage becomes a thing of the past and locationis irrelevant.

Competitive CostsIn economics, price all comes down to supply

and demand, and thankfully, independence fromfossil fuels is putting a high demand on solar manu-facturers and making it an ideal industry to be in.Competition within the market has driven downprices enough in the past decade that solar poweris now a far more attainable option for manyhouseholds.

Considering that many of these families arespending 10 percent of their income on kerosenein order to light their home, transitioning to solarpower has a dramatic impact on their life.

Energy IndependenceUnfortunately, expense and supply consistency

aren’t the only major issues for emerging econo-mies. Generally, these countries have been pla-gued by poverty and war for generations—whichhas made it challenging to maintain an open, cent-ral government, let alone a functioning energymarket.

As demands for fossil fuels has grown interna-tionally, it has become far more difficult for strugg-ling economies to be able to maintain open accessto fossil fuel driven energy supplies. Converting tosolar power, however, flips that dialogue on itshead. No longer is a government, business, orresidence going to need to be reliant on outside

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sources to meet their needs. Instead, economicindependence and growth can be spawned inter-nally and naturally.

We at Home Improvement Leads valuesustainable energy practices like solar power andknow what an extraordinary impact they can have,not just for a family’s finances, but for the better-ment of developing countries. And with the im-plementation of solar on both such a small and

large scale, the well-being of our environmentlooks sunnier every day.

Courtni Wisenbaker-Scheel is author for HomeImprovement Leads.

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Sabi Magyari

Market development trends in the African solar PVoff-grid sector

n the 20th of October 2016, Solarplazaorganized the webinar “Market Develo-pment Trends in the African solar PV

Off-Grid Sector”, as a preparation for our upcomingevent: The Solar Future of Nigeria in April,2017.The webinar featured a wide spectrum of expertswho shared the most important current trends inAfrica ranging from Itamar Orlandi, from Bloom-berg New Energy finance, and Laura Sundblad,from GOGLA, to Eliza Hogen, from Lumeter; andalso included Sam Slaughter, from PowerGen Re-newable Energy, who gave insight into the possiblefuture development of off-grid trends.The entire

video recording of the webinar and the speakers’slides can be freely accessed here.

Out of the roughly 1.2 billion people in theworld who do not have access to electricity, halflive in Asia and the other half in Africa. However,while the number of Asians with no access toelectricity has halved over the last 15 years, inAfrica things have been getting worse, with anadditional 211 million people who have gone off-grid since 1990 (Figure 1). This means that closingAfrica’s energy gap has become imperative.

Figure 1. The off-grid population by region between 1990 and 2012 (millions of people)

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1. Lower-income households are willing to paypremium tariffs for solar solutions

One of the most interesting take-away messa-ges of the webinar, was that consumers are willingto pay premium tariffs for off-grid solar appliancesdespite the relatively low average household in-comes in Africa. Itamar Orlandi, the head of ap-plied research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance,

points out that non-renewable lighting devicessuch as torches and candles have remained to beless costly light sources than their solar counter-parts, yet consumers are willing to pay up to$6.5/month for solar appliances as they deliverbetter quality and more reliable light than theirnon-solar energy source alternatives (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The prevalence of previously used energy sources and their corresponding prices in Rwanda.

2. Smaller is better. Small-scale off-grid pro-ducts dominate the market in Africa

Another key finding regarding off-grid solartrends in Africa, is that small and medium, stand-alone solar energy appliances tend to dominatethe market in terms of both sales volume and re-venues.

In terms of volume sold, smaller products (0-10Wp) are the most frequently sought productswhereas in terms of revenues the medium productsize category (3-10Wp) tends to be the most suc-cessful (Figure 3.) says Laura Sundblad, programadviser at GOGLA, an independent not-for-profitassociation supporting lighting initiatives in Africa.

Figure 3. Volume and revenue sales figures in sub-SaharanAfrica.

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3. Despite its popularity, the PAYGO modelstill requires significant capital investment

One of the most remunerative business modelsfor solar stand-alone systems is the Pay-as-you-go(PAYG) payment, where customers only pay for theactual electricity consumption. This model enablesconsumers to lease stand-alone products in returnof periodical payments (Figure 4). While the model

fits the needs of low income African households, itrequires significant initial investments from provi-ders’ side. As a result, the primary challenge foroff-grid solar energy is the constant need for capi-tal, identifies Eliza Hogen, CEO of Lumeter, a com-pany that provides financing for off-grid products.

Figure 4. Business scheme of the PAYGO model.

4. Off-grid and on-grid solutions need to con-verge to create a successful energy structure inAfrica

Sam Slaughter, CEO of PowerGen Renewablehighlights the need for convergence of globalpower system architecture. He envisions the futurepower grid as a mesh of distributed storage, gene-ration, and consumption nodes rather than itscurrent mono-directional version (Figure 5). He

also emphasizes how Africa’s power system cannottake on existing grid architecture of the West ortake on a completely new one that is unique toAfrica and unknown to the rest of the world.Instead of pursuing such extremes, Africa’s powersystem has to combine on and off-grid solutions tobe successful.

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Figure 5. Future scheme of the global power system.

5. On-grid and off-grid worlds need to talkFinally, Slaughter points out the importance of

realizing that the real issue to be addressed is pro-viding energy access for those that lack it, insteadof analysing the problem in terms of “on-grid vsoff-grid”. If the efforts of both on-grid and off-gridpower supply solutions could be aligned, both

parties could benefit from each others’ know-how and infrastructure. As an example, grid supplycould benefit from the pre-pay and smart meteringtechnologies which are widely adopted among off-grid solutions and off-grid solutions could use thelong-term project financing experience of their gridcounterparts (Figure 6).

Figure 6.Main advantages of on-grid and off-grid solutions.

Szabolcs Magyari is Research Analyst at SolarPlaza.

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Daniel Anthes

Development should be about happiness, not GDP growth

DP only tells us half the story (at best).Maybe it's time we start looking atother things...?

End of January Davos was host to the WorldEconomic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting. 2,500 topinternational political and business leaders, as wellas selected intellectuals and journalists from allover the globe met in Switzerland’s Alps to discussthe most pressing issues facing the world.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winning economist,was one of them. Claiming that GDP is not a goodmeasure of economic performance and not a goodmeasure of well-being, he stressed a fundamentalmisbelief in our today’s world – (economic) growthindeed tells us nothing about the quality andsustainability of development. Let us take a look atthe story behind the problem.

For the past 70 years, the world was driven by acentral paradigm: growth equals development.And the best measure to quantify progress in thiscontext is a country’s gross domestic product(GDP). Serving as an an estimate of the total valueof goods and services it produces, growth in GDPwas meant to create more jobs, more money,more well-being, more development.

But even when the concept was first developedback in the late 1930s by Simon Kuznets, hewarned that it was not a suitable measure of acountry’s development. On the contrary, he under-stood that GDP is not a welfare measure, but onlycounts the things that people are buying and sel-ling – and that it’s quite possible for the GDP to goin the opposite direction of societal welfare.

This brings us to today and the main problemthat essentially lies within: it’s simply not working.Since 1980, the global economy has grown by380%, but the number of people living in povertyon less than five US-Dollar a day has increased bymore than 1.1 billion – that’s more than everyseventh person on this planet. So much for thetrickle-down effect and general well-being.

But it gets worse. Just recently Oxfam publis-hed a report where it finds that the 62 richestpeople are as wealthy as the poorest 3.6 billion.And the gap keeps growing. The fortune of thisultra-wealthy group of individuals grew by morethan half a trillion US-Dollars in the last half-decade, while the world’s poorest half lost about41 percent despite an increase in global populationof 400 million.

Simultaneously we are overshooting the pla-net’s ecological limits. In fact, we are currentlydemanding environmental services such as forestland, fishing grounds or carbon dioxide absorptionof one and a half earths. If we look at the reasonsfor that, we again find a vast gap. The averageEuropean needs 4.7 hectares per year – or nearlyseven football pitches – to satisfy his or her con-sumption pattern of natural resources. This isabout five times more than the ecological footprintof the average person in a developing country suchas Malawi or Cambodia, who consume just under 1hectare annually.

Whether it be climate change, resource scarcityor loss of biodiversity, our impact on the planetand its ecosystems is exceedingly omnipresent and

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extremely alarming. But given the underlying ine-qualities and widening social gap, what does thismean for our growth and development paradigm?

We must start focusing on happiness, and noton GDP growth. People more and more have thefeeling there is something wrong with the domi-nant model of economic progress. That’s whythey‘re hungry for an alternative narrative. Weneed to move beyond GDP as the major measureof progress and fashion a sustainable developmentindex that puts people and the planet first.

If we look at measures of overall happiness andwellbeing, quite a few developing countries rankhighly – even without a GDP per capita of 50,000US-Dollar. One such an approach is the HappyPlanet Index, ranking countries according to theirexperienced well-being, life expectancy and ecolo-gical footprint. Costa Rica is leading the way a-longside several developing countries in Latin Ame-rica, sustaining the highest happiness indicatorglobally with a per capita income one-fourth thatof the US. By comparison, Denmark and Switzer-land may be countries with high scores on experi-enced well-being, but are screwed by their ecologi-cal footprint. And not just since last year’s COP21we know that this overconsumption of the globalNorth is putting our planet at risk.

According to consumer research, 70% of peoplein middle and high income countries share worryabout the impact of their consumption patterns. Asimilar majority also believes we should strive tobuy and own less, and that doing so would notcompromise our happiness. The rising sharingeconomy as a smarter and more discerning con-sumerism is poised to significantly alter our eco-nomic models. Also shorter working weeks and

basic incomes are approaches attracting furtherattention, all of which that could possibly improveour lives while reducing consumption.

The unprecedented speed of change, as well asthe breadth and the depth of many radical changesunleashed by new technologies, is having majorimpacts on what and how we produce and consu-me. And since the world is changing at such a rapidpace, so too should the way we measure progress.In order to do so, we must learn to redefine ourconcept of growth for the 21st century. There hasto be some looking beyond the conventional eco-nomic terms and consider questions of security,equality, health and quality of life - as well as en-vironmental sustainability.

Bottom line is: what we measure informs uswhat we do. If we are measuring the wrong thingand continue to solely focus on GDP growth we aregoing to do the wrong thing. It’s as simple as that.Herman E. Daly und Joshua Farley in their bookEcological Economics got to the heart of this di-lemma: “Even if we can never quantify satisfactionor happiness as precisely as we currently quantifyGDP, perhaps it is better to be vaguely right thanprecisely wrong.”

Let’s start to be happy.

Daniel Anthes is a qualified economic geographer,who has worked in the field of natural resourcemanagement.

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Justus Bahati Wanzala

Solar-powered farming, built in Kenya

hris Muthoka is a farmer in Machakos Coun-ty, about 43 miles [70 kilometers] southeastof Nairobi along Mombasa Road, the main

highway between the country’s two largest cities.He grows capsicum—pepper plants—across fouracres of land. An extremely water-intensive crop,keeping the plants hydrated used to be challengein a country with erratic rainfall and frequentdroughts.

But Muthoka is one of many farmers across Ke-nya turning to solar power to help irrigate crops.He uses an AgroSolar Irrigation Kit, a cheap, easy-to-install, and low-maintenance drip-irrigationsystem produced by local NGO Sunculture. Duringthe day, the solar panel collects sunlight and usesthe energy to pump water from a reservoir, river,well, or other water source into an above-groundstorage drum. Then, whenever the crops needwater, farmers can just release the valve, day ornight, and let the water trickle out through tubesacross their fields.

The kits are bespoke and can be scaled up tohandle as much as 40 acres of farmland, but theycertainly aren’t cheap. A complete installation — covering the irrigation system, the solar panels andpumps, a 5,000 liter storage tank, and labor — tosupply a single acre of land can cost in the regionof 380,000KSH [$3,736]. Still, Muthoka said it’sworth it. “Although the initial capital outlay mightbe a challenge to some farmers, once bought itneeds no running costs,” he pointed out. “I’m ableto supply fresh produce throughout the year to mycustomers.”

Sunculture’s Kathryn Weichel told me that whi-le the alternative — diesel pumps — are more af-fordable to start, they make irrigation a costlyaffair in the long term, especially for single-familyfarms.

“Our aim is to make irrigation affordable and[of] quality,” she explained. The organization has ahighly trained technical team involved in researchand development, and is training farmers in theuse and maintenance of the kit.

With climate change is creating more and moreerratic rainfall, farmers in Kenya are trying to figureout how to keep their fields watered consistently.Only around 17 percent of Kenya’s land area cansustain agriculture on rainfall alone — elsewhere,farmers have to tap into other water sources tofeed their crops.

This has spurred demand for affordable andeasy-to-run water pumps across the country, andenvironmentally friendly pumps (which don’t con-tribute to climate change) even more so. Anotherorganization working on the problem is Kickstart — a Kenyan nonprofit specializing in irrigation tech-nology specifically for poor farmers.

Kickstart was founded in 1991, originally as Ap-proTEC. In its 25 years, the organization’s manualirrigation pumps have left a mark on millions ofpeople in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. They’vealleviated poverty, improved food security, andmade it easier for people to adjust to climatechange.

Mosses Odongo, head of sales and distributionat Kickstart’s headquarters in Nairobi, showed me

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one of their first models, powered by pedaling. It’sheavier, larger, and less efficient than today’s mainmodel — the “MoneyMaker Max,” an uprightpump that costs farmers $70 each. (Its name refersto its ability to increase the incomes of the farmerswho use them.)

He explained: “[It’s] found a market not only inKenya but the entirety of east, south, and westAfrica. It can draw water from a depth of 23 feetand pump it to a height of 46 feet, and 600 metershorizontally, and irrigate an acre of land.” Eventhough the pumps require physical strength tooperate, Odongo claims that part of the success ofthe MoneyMaker pumps is that people of all agesand genders can operate them.

But, like SunCulture, Kickstart has also develo-ped its own solar-powered pump. It costs $400and, according to Titus Wafula, head of the techni-cal team involved in its development, it can pump4.5 gallons [17 liters] per minute from a depth ofover 16 feet [or exactly five meters].

On a good day, with plenty of sunshine, itpumps somewhere between 800 to 1,050 gallons[3,000–4000 liters]. There’s also an extra toolavailable, a solar boost converter that uses a tech-nique called Maximum Power Point Tracking(MPPT) to improve the efficiency of each unit ondays with less sunshine.

Seventy units have been sold since the launchand, perhaps unsurprisingly, women farmers havebeen even more receptive to the solar pumps thanmen.

“It has come to our realization that apart fromirrigation purposes, in most homesteads with shal-low boreholes, women are the ones who drawwater using buckets tied on ropes. The availabilityof a solar pump relieves them the burden of dra-wing water,” Wafula noted. Each pump can irrigatea quarter of an acre of land, and comes with anautomated irrigation system and storage tank.

Importantly, the technology behind the pumpwas developed entirely in-house at Kickstart. “Westarted exploring ways of designing a solar pump,because we thought they could be affordable tofarmers, unlike the fossil fuel-powered ones,” O-dongo said. Kickstart’s technologies, he explained,are developed by Kenyans for the African market.“Due to investing in research and development, wehave been able to satisfy the needs of our clientswhile still ensuring they are affordable.”

Wafula reiterates his colleague’s comments,saying that they hire graduates from local universi-ties and offer them further in-house training. Kick-start also has a devoted technical team that workson prototype design and testing.

Plus, Odongo is elated by the impact of thetechnologies on the lives of poor farmers. He saysdata from their monitoring and evaluation teamindicate that among households and communitiesthat have embraced their technologies, poverty isdeclining. “Households using our pumps, for in-stance, have improved nutrition and are able totake their children and meet medical expenses,” hesaid.

Kickstart is also branching out into other areas,including housing — or, rather, housing supplies, inresponse to frequent shortages of things like bricksin Kenya. The nonprofit has invented a press thatuses soil mixed with cement to produce buildingblocks that don’t need to be cured in an oven befo-re use.

Or there’s the oil press, for farmers to get themost out of their sesame or sunflower crops—itcan make over a hundred gallons [hundreds ofliters] of oil a day, if necessary. Or, there’s a haybaler, which can manage more than 200 bales(each weighing around 44 pounds, or 20 kilograms)per day. In drought-ridden climates, bales are vitalfor saving up feed for livestock.

Kickstart also works with both NGOs andgovernmental bodies to try and sell its products — but success brings with it a new challenge: fallingwater levels in Kenyan rivers, springs, and ground-water sources.

“We are compelled to assess the customer’swater source to advise them accordingly. This is tospare them from buying a pump, and failing to useit [because of the] unavailability of enough water,”said Odongo.

The scenario has forced Kickstart to liaise withorganizations involved in rainwater harvesting andconservation to ensure that farmers don’t usemore water than they should. His main concern,however, is that the government has failed to offertax concessions that could cut down productioncosts. “Underlying our initiative is service to small-holder farmers. We don’t want to add misery tothem. Unfortunately the government has startedtaxing our products, thus pushing the burden tofarmers,” he lamented.

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As climate change makes rainfall increasinglymore inconsistent, solar irrigation will surely not bethe final frontier for companies like Kickstart andSunCulture questing to solve the problems of Ken-yan dependent on farms across the country.

Justus Bahati Wanzala is a freelance contributor forthe Thomson Reuters Foundation, based in Nairo-bi.

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Sevea

Chbar Chros: outlook of the first solar village andmobile payment system of Cambodia

n Cambodia, where according to the CambodianMinistry of Mines and Energy (MME), only 55%had access to electricity in 2015, developing the

electrification of rural areas is a huge task, whichrequires, from the involved stakeholders, innovati-ve methods and solutions. The experience lead in2015 by the Stiftung Solarenergie and its localpartners, which consisted in electrifying a wholevillage with solar and in introducing a mobile pay-ment system, SunControl-Payment-System, totraditional Solar Home Systems (SHS), is a shiningexample of a path to pursue.

This “Solar Village” concept, first introduced byStiftung Solarenergie foundation in 2004 in Ethio-pia and then replicated 4 times in Africa & Asia,aims at showing that, through the sustainablesolarization of an entire village (households, publicbuildings and areas..), decentralized solar techno-logy is able to foster economic and social develo-pment. To ensure the long-term success and con-tribution towards alleviating poverty of such pro-jects, the foundation approach usually consists inpartnering, defining and implementing the projectwith like minded local partners also striving for thesustainability of their actions. In the case of Cam-bodia, these actors were as followed:

· NRG Solutions, a Cambodian social enterpri-se providing sustainable and affordable energy torural areas while focusing on both quality solutionsand reliable after sales services. For this first Cam-bodian Solar Village, NRG is playing the role of the

local installer, the trainer and the one in charge ofafter sales service;

· Camkids, a Cambodian NGO helping child-ren in Cambodia who are either poor or whoseparents are not there for them.Their modus ope-randi consists of focusing on understanding theneeds of a few communities and identifying how tointegrate, in a holistic way, long term solutionswithin these communities. Chbar Chros village inKampong Speu was selected for this Solar Villagebecause of Camkids long term involvement andtrust with the community.

· Sevea, a Cambodian consulting company of-fering strategic and operational support to Corpo-rations, Organizations, Projects & Social Entrepre-neurs that seek to develop their impact strategiesin the Water & Energy sector and/or engage withBOP markets. In this project, Sevea has been incharge of defining an appropriate methodology forthe monitoring, evaluation and impact assessmentof the solarisation of the entire community.

In order to follow the impact of such a project,Sevea conducted, prior to the installation of thesolar systems, an initial exhaustive assessment tounderstand the electric situation of the village ofChbar Chros. Following is an overview of this initialsituation:

Similarly to many Cambodian villages, ChbarChros will not be connected to the grid before afew years. Most of the households of the village

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were considered as a Tier 1 on the Energy ladder ofSustainable Energy for All, the lowest level in termsof access to electricity supply. This meant that thehouseholds had access to a basic source of lightand a phone charger but no general lighting, TVand fan. For their electricity supply, householdswere using car batteries to power around 2 fixlighting bulbs in the house and a mobile charger.These batteries had to be charged in average onceper week taking around 1.3 hours per recharge tothose in charge of it.

In addition to “fix lighting solutions”, 90% ofthe villagers were also using electrical mobile lan-terns to walk in the village or for their fishing acti-vities. Dry cell batteries used to power these tor-ches, needed to be changed very week and wereusually, once used, thrown away around the hou-ses or in the forest.

On the community level, 3 public infrastruc-tures (the school, an accommodation for the staffof Camkids and a clinic) were already powered byreliable energy, since Camkids had identified thisneed as an urgent one and had started solarizingthe buildings in 2013.

First positive feedbacks have not been slow toarrive: Just a few weeks after the official launch ofthe projects and the installations of the solar sys-tems, families could just not stop to explain whatan improvement it was for the village to have this

project; not only with regards to the expandedpossibilities to work in the evening or early in themorning but also thanks to the fact that the verytime-consuming transport of the car batteries tothe charging station is no longer necessary. In addi-tion, they mentioned that they were particularlyhappy with the quality of the trouble shootingservices, rarely seen in such villages.

As one of the objective of the Solar Village pro-ject is to be in a position to really follow-up andunderstand these outcomes, Sevea will conducttwo more assessments, one after 6 months andone after a year. This thorough process of impactsmeasurement will give a more accurate idea aboutwhat the solarization of such rural area villages canbring in term of economic and social development.Furthermore, this project will provide first feed-backs about the advantages and disadvantages ofthe usage of mobile payment technologies in Cam-bodia.

Sevea supports entrepreneurs and organisations tobuild and scale sustainable solutions leading tosocial, environmental and economic impacts.

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Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

Solar power, text messages fight maternal deathsin rural Cameroon

combination of solar energy and a newmobile phone platform are makinghealthcare easier to access in Cameroon.

Julianna Senze, 40, had been in heavy labourfor eight hours when she arrived at the IdenauHealth Centre in Limbe, on the southwest coast ofCameroon.

Like many women in the country, she had hadno prenatal care, so what should have been a rou-tine delivery was now a high-risk medical proce-dure. The nurses, looking worn and tired, rushedher to the delivery room.

"We had to get her here quickly from Batokevillage, some eight kilometres away, after receivingan SMS message from the doctor on duty," said herhusband, his voice strained with worry. Less thanan hour later, Senze safely delivered a healthybaby boy.

Only a few years ago, Senze's story could havehad a more tragic ending.

Cameroon has one of the highest maternalmortality rates in the world. More than 7,000 wo-men die due to pregnancy-related causes and58,000 children under the age of 5 lose their livesevery year in Cameroon, according to the UnitedNations Population Fund in Cameroon.

Most of them live in rural parts of the country,where health services are weakest.

But a combination of solar energy and a newmobile phone platform, which gives women access

to important health information, is changing that.New renewable energy projects are giving more

people the electricity they need to access healthinformation, and giving hospitals power to deliveressential care, experts say.

The message that may have saved Senze's lifewas sent using Gifted Mom, a mobile platformfounded by Cameroon engineer Alain Nteff in2012.

The text-messaging service and app gives wo-men in out-of-the-way rural communities freehealth advice, sending reminders about prenatalcheck-ups and children's vaccinations. It tells userswhen and where to get the treatment they need,and gives them access to doctors who can answerhealth-related questions.

According to Nteff, Gifted Mom is now used inall 10 regions of the country.

"The project expects to help reduce the num-ber of Cameroonian women who die during child-birth and the number of babies who die at birth byat least 70 percent by 2020," said Nteff, talking tothe press in Yaounde.

But Gifted Mom's success would be impossibleif it weren't for the other projects tackling anotherissue that blights the lives of those living in ruralCameroon: lack of electricity.

Solar and wind step inAccording to the World Bank, nearly 600 million

people in sub-Saharan Africa - most of them in

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rural areas where poverty is high - still lack accessto energy, and electrification is barely keepingpace with population growth.

Limbe, a big coastal town in southwestCameroon, runs on hydroelectricity provided byENEO, the country's lone energy provider. But evenresidents connected to the grid can't rely on havingelectricity when they need it.

Prolonged droughts have caused a severe dropin the water levels of the Sanaga river, which feedsthe area's hydropower plant, resulting in cripplingpower outages.

�"We suffer from persistent blackouts on adaily basis," said Motanga Andrew, the govern-ment delegate to the Limbe city council.

In Idenau and Batoke, two fishing villages about12 kilometres from Limbe city, there are prettybeaches and vast tracts of unspoiled mangroveforests that bring in the tourists.

But, until recently, the communities couldn'taccess enough power to meet the most basicneeds of running their businesses and health ser-vices.

The recent arrival of solar power, however, isalready improving the lives, health experts say.

In 2015, a renewable-energy expert from Cana-da began using homemade wind turbines and solarpanels to build a network of renewable energyelectrical stations to supply power to homes andmedical clinics in the area.

The networks are also used to charge mo-torcycle batteries, which residents take home topower their lights and charge their cell phones,which they can then use to conduct business andaccess health information.

Also last year, the African Resource GroupCameroon (ARG-CAM), in collaboration with theLimbe city council, built mini-electrical grids to

provide light, cooking energy and phone-chargingstations to the people of Limbe, Idenau, andBatoke.

According to the non-governmental group's di-rector general, Edmond Linonge Njoh, the initiati-ve, funded by the African Union's New Partnershipfor Africa's Development, aims to reduce thefishing communities' dependence on fuel woodand kerosene, both of which come with significanthealth risks.

"The coming of alternative and cheaper energyto our council area is a welcome relief," said thegovernment delegate to Limbe.

In Idenau, storekeeper Njombe Ikome said theprovision of solar energy to the community haschanged the lives of people there.

"Our children can now do their homework atnight and they are doing well in school," he said."Idenau is a business community and so the use ofcell phones for communication with business part-ners is very important."

According to Rose Agbor, assistant warden ofthe Idenau Health Centre, the facility used to helpfewer than 15 pregnant women and nursingmothers each day.

Now, with solar energy providing a reliableelectricity supply and the Gifted Mom platformraising awareness of the availability of prenatalcare, the centre sees over 50 patients daily.

"The arrival of solar electricity here has chan-ged everything," she said.

Reported by Elias Ntungwe Ngalame; edited byJumana Farouky and Laurie Goering for ThomsonReuters Foundation.

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Jean Chemnick

How women are reaping benefits from Africa'ssolar revolution

or girls in Berta Massawe's Tanzanian villageof Kibosho, every day was a race against theclock -- or, more accurately, against the sun.

When it was dark in this village on the slopes ofMount Kilimanjaro, it was dark. There were nostreetlights or headlights to break up the night.Work and study were impossible except by candleor kerosene lamp -- when they were available. Ifthieves came to steal livestock, and they did, therewas little a family could do to stop them.

Boys like Massawe's two brothers had choresto do, too, but they usually involved moving theirfamilies' goats and cows from one pasture to thenext and feeding them. They were finished beforethe sun went down and had more hours to study.Ritha Tarimo, director of M-Power Academy inArusha, Tanzania, said it's a common story.

"It is really a struggle, especially for femalechildren," said Tarimo, who grew up in much thesame kind of Kilimanjaro town herself before mo-ving to the city as an adolescent. "Because theyhave to really help with the house chores. So bythe time they finish, it is 9 at night and it's hard tosit down to study."

Renewable energy deployment in Africa is stillvery new, and it's still a story told more in anecdo-tes than statistics. More than 600 million Africans -- or 60 percent of people on the continent -- stillhave no access to electricity. In countries like Mas-sawe's Tanzania, that number climbs to 80 percentor higher. Even Africans who do have power fre-

quently don't have it 24 hours a day, or don't haveenough to maintain the kind of lifestyle the Wes-tern world takes for granted, like householdwidelighting.In areas that remain underserved, thegender implications are clear. The World Bank says70 percent of those suffering from energy povertyare women and girls, who experts say are lesslikely to migrate to urban centers -- where electri-city is more available -- in search of work.

But those who work in Africa see grid-connected as well as mini- and off-grid solar begin-ning to penetrate into new areas of rural Africa,where women and girls spend a greater share oftheir time. Solar is a particularly good fit, they say,because the resource is abundant in Africa andbecause it does not require the expansion oftransmission infrastructure that would be neededto support larger fossil-fuels-based facilities.

"This means that people who live way off thegrid and will probably not in their lifetime see thatwire go over their roof are able to immediatelytoday get access to electricity that opens up thistransformation for them," said Katherine Lucey,co-founder of the social enterprise Solar Sister. Shesaid access to power can be particularly transfor-mative for women.

"It's women who manage the energy in thehousehold, it's women who walk the miles to fetchthe wood for cooking, it's women who go to mar-ket to buy the kerosene to use at night for coo-king," she said.

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For girls like Massawe, having even a singlelight bulb in the house means they can study afterdark. Social life doesn't have to end when the sungoes down, and women can start small businessesthat require refrigeration or evening work.

The new industry is also an opportunity forwomen to work outside the home.

"It's a new industry that allows new partici-pants to show up shoulder to shoulder with every-one else," said Kevin Smith, CEO of SolarReserve, aCalifornia-based utility-scale solar company thatoperates three solar photovoltaic utility-scaleplants in South Africa. "Everybody's at the sameskill level. Everyone has the same training require-ments."

The 'Avon of solar power'In South Africa, much of the country's solar

energy supply is from commercial-scale facilities,thanks in part to the Renewable Energy Indepen-dent Power Producer Procurement Programme,which gave private investors a stake in renewableenergy while fossil fuels plants remain state-run.

But other countries in less developed parts ofthe continent aren't connected to the grid, andgrowth in the solar sector is mainly off-grid. Wo-men have found employment selling and installingrooftop-to-rooftop solar equipment, either asemployees of larger enterprises or as independentcontractors.

Neha Misra, who co-founded Solar Sister withLucey, said she tries to cultivate village women toplay the dual rule of solar evangelist and "mobileBest Buy" in their communities.

"We're deliberately including women as part ofthe clean-energy chain, and really changing thenarrative from 'oh, these poor women, they'revictims' to women as change agents," she said.

Solar Sister's model is to recruit, train and men-tor African women -- they currently operate inUganda, Tanzania and Nigeria -- who earn amarkup for selling a catalogue of solar energy andclean cookstove equipment. Solar Sister negotiateswith the manufacturer on behalf of the womenand offers what Misra calls "ongoing mentorship"and sustained training.

The product line is tailored to the consumerbase. A new addition in Uganda, for example, is alight that attaches to a fisherman's net to helpincrease the catch.

It's often the first job for these entrepreneurs,who now number 2,200, Misra said, allowing themto pay a child's school fees or supplement the pro-ceeds of a family farm. "Think of us as the Avon ofsolar power," said Misra. "Instead of selling lipstick,we're selling solar and clean cooking technologies.Which I think is another way of being beautiful --instead of lipstick, you can see your face," she said,referring to the smoke and fumes from traditionalkerosene lamps the products help avoid.

Favoring action over negotiationsMisra has some limited experience with energy

insecurity from growing up in Delhi, India, wherebrownouts in her middle-class apartment buildingforced her to study by candlelight. But she says shedidn't know what living off the grid was like untilshe visited the Sundarbans in eastern India as ayoung energy economist researching the effects ofrural electrification in South Asia for a think tank.

Misra's work as an economist and researchereventually brought her to the United States, whereshe found herself splitting time between attendinghigh-level events -- including meetings of the U.N.Framework Convention on Climate Change -- andvisiting villages "where people do not have a singlelight bulb."

The dichotomy between the two began to wearon her, she said, especially as the high-stakesround of U.N. talks in 2009 in Copenhagen, Den-mark, approached. The world seemed to be inves-ting so much in a search for what Misra calls a"boomerang" solution to climate change, and notnearly enough in using existing technologies tohelp the world's poor transition out of povertywhile safeguarding the environment.

"I was absolutely disenchanted with the lack ofprogress on the international climate negotiationsfrom the perspective of injustice," she said. High-level dialogue is not doing its job, she said, "whenwe are on the verge of sending space tourists and awoman in a village does not even have a lightbulb."

Misra said she became more interested in get-ting the woman her light bulb than in preparing forCopenhagen. She left her job at a U.S.-based ener-gy economist and joined Lucey, a former invest-ment banker, to form Solar Sister.

The two started the organization with theirown savings, but sales help sustain it. It also has

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received backing the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment and the State Department'swPOWER program, which aims to expand oppor-tunities for women in renewable energy. They sayit costs about $500 to train a woman and get herstarted as one of their entrepreneurs.

"If you don't have access to electricity, you real-ly can't move forward; you're stuck in this cycle ofpoverty," Lucey said. "Our lives are powered byelectricity, and when that's missing, so much ofyour time and energy is consumed by that lack."

Inclusion from day one is key, experts sayWhile renewable energy is broadly seen as a

win for African women, those who work in thespace emphasize that it matters how programs arestructured.

Development banks, U.S. foreign aid agenciesand international nongovernmental organizationsare tailoring their African electrification programsto involve women, and to ensure that traditionalAfrican power roles don't reassert themselves inthe programs they fund.

Anne Kuriakose, senior gender specialist withthe World Bank's Climate Investment Fund, said aconcerted effort is required from the very begin-ning to ensure women are involved in projects andhave access to their benefits.

If you're not systematically including women inconsultations, you might not end up with the sortsof exploitation uses that they're interested in," shesaid. For example, women might benefit fromhaving a village mill or an obstetrics clinic poweredby renewable energy, but if they're not included indecisionmaking, their needs might not be consi-dered.

Developed-country support for projects toelectrify Africa through renewable energy hasincreased sharply over the last few years.

The Obama administration launched its PowerAfrica initiative in 2013, with the aim of doublingpower access to Africa. The administration says it isalready responsible for bringing power to 60 milli-on people.

Though the overall employment story remainsmurky, those who work in off-grid energy say that'smore a failure by agency-backed researchers tokeep up with the trend than a reflection of conditi-ons on the ground. The latest report by the Inter-national Renewable Energy Agency states that

"renewable energy-related employment remainslow in Africa except in a few countries, like Kenya,Morocco and South Africa, where deploymentgrowth is creating domestic value and jobs."

Her time to be a superheroBack in Arusha, Tanzania, Tarimo says she ap-

plied for her current role running the M-PowerAcademy for a household solar equipment retailercalled Off Grid Electric because she wanted tomake a difference.

"The rate of unemployment in our country isactually heartbreaking, and I thought if I joined, Icould play a role in reducing unemployment," saidTarimo, who ran a language and cultural school inArusha before taking the M-Power Academy job. "Ihave always wanted to be a superhero, and Ithought maybe it was my time."

Tanzania's official rate of unemployment is 11percent, but that includes even very sporadic se-asonal employment. And women are particularlydisadvantaged when they leave home in search ofwork.

Massawe, who would eventually become a stu-dent of Tarimo's at the academy, struggled to findemployment after graduating from Mzumbe Uni-versity in eastern Tanzania.

"For us women in Tanzania, we are not givenpriority in many places," said Massawe. "When yougo to interviews and there are males and females,males are given priority more than females."

After a string of fruitless interviews, she ans-wered an ad for Off Grid Electric, traveling the 80miles from Kibosho to Arusha for the interview.

She was hired and sent through a one-monthprofessional development training course at theacademy Tarimo runs before beginning work at itscall center, where she has been now for more thana year.

Massawe says her training and the work shehas done since have given her confidence. Shehopes to one day become an Internet technologymanager. "I want to become a person who canhelp others," she said.

Jean Chemnick is an international climate policyreporter for E&E News.

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SciDev.Net

‘Suitcase lab’ in the fight against kala-azar

angladeshi scientists have developed a so-lar-powered portable test kit that promisescheap, quick and accurate detection of

visceral leishmaniasis, the disfiguring and potenti-ally fatal disease caused by Leishmaniasis donova-ni, a protozoan parasite.

The ‘laboratory in a suitcase’ is considered abreakthrough in field testing for the disease whichis spread by the female sandfly and is known askala-azar in the Indian subcontinent. According toWHO, 90 per cent of all cases of kala-azar occur inBangladesh, Brazil, India, Nepal and Sudan. Bang-ladesh reported some 600 new cases in 2014—2015.

On infection, the patient develops irregularbouts of fever, substantial weight loss, swelling ofthe spleen and liver, and serious anaemia which, ifnot quickly treated, is fatal.

Dinesh Mondal, principal researcher and seniorscientist at the International Centre for DiarrhoealDisease, Bangladesh (icddr,b), tells SciDev.Net, thathis team’s endeavour was to come up with a por-table kit capable of “confirmed diagnosis of newkala-azar, kala-azar relapse, dermal leishmaniasisand asymptomatic risk for development of dise-ase.”

Developed in collaboration with the Universityof Gottingen, Germany, and funded by WHO-Tropical Disease Research, the kit is described byMondal and his colleagues in Parasites & Vectorspublished May.

Conventional methods of diagnosing kala-azarrely on antibody tests and clinical symptoms.

Molecular diagnosis is more accurate but requiresusing the real-time polymerase chain reaction(PCR) method to detect the DNA of the L. donovaniparasite in the blood of infected people.

In contrast, the new kit uses recombinase po-lymerase amplification (RPA) to detect L. donovaniDNA. Unlike PCR, RPA does not require repeatedcycles of heating and cooling and yet provides 100per cent accuracy.Furthermore, the new kit takes30 minutes to run tests on eight samples simulta-neously against the laboratory method which re-quires over three hours to test a single sample.

“PCR is the most sensitive test for detection ofleishmania DNA, but it needs a specialised lab andhighly trained personnel. It also costs about US$30—40 per test, while tests using the new kit costsjust US$ 6 per test,” Mondal says.

“If the device proves effective in the next phaseof field trial it could play a significant role in vectorcontrol strategies and surveillance capacity of thedisease elimination programme in countries wherethe disease is a major burden,” Shamuzzaman,director at the communicable diseases departmentof Bangladesh’s directorate of health services, tellsSciDev.Net.

SciDev.Net is a source of news, views and analysison information about science and technology forglobal development.

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Ned Tozun

Reducing energy poverty not only for solar and impact in-vestors

ne day, a friend of Bala Suleman, who livednear Kano, Nigeria, was raving to himabout a new portable solar light he’d

started using. Suleman, a chicken farmer, wasskeptical but open to learning more about hisfriend’s new acquisition.

“When I saw the way it was constructed andthe quality of the plastic, I was completely con-vinced of the great value it can bring and boughttwo lamps straightaway for my stall,” Sulemanrecalled.

With his new solar-powered d.light lamps, theoutput of Suleman’s chicken farm grew by 30 per-cent. The light scared away predators and allowedhim to feed his chickens in the evening. He wasable to produce 15 more eggs a week from thesame flock.

Suleman is one of the 2.3 billion people livingaround the world in energy poverty, who lack ac-cess to reliable electricity or live off the grid com-pletely. Of this population, over half spend about$27 billion annually on mobile phone charging andlighting with kerosene, candles, flashlights, orother fossil fuel-powered technologies.

Burning kerosene to light homes and busines-ses has serious drawbacks. Breathing kerosenefumes is equivalent to smoking two packs of ciga-rettes a day. Structural fires and severe burns arecommon, resulting in fatalities 13 percent of thetime. Meanwhile, kerosene fuel costs 40 timeswhat the average American pays for energy, ma-

king it a significant hindrance to economic advan-cement for individuals and communities.

Studies from India indicate that electrification,from anything from solar lighting to microgrids,increases incomes up to 38 percent and literacyrates as much as 74 percent. As the burden of highkerosene costs are removed and families haveaccess to reliable energy, significant economicpotential is being unlocked globally. Yet we’ve onlybegun to enable this growing market.

Over the past decade, social impact investorsand entrepreneurs have provided solar energysolutions to people at the base of the economicpyramid and generated financial returns on parwith conventional investments. But, for the visionof economic development in emerging markets tobe fully realized, the industry needs more conven-tional funds and large investors to finance compa-nies improving energy access in emerging markets.

This is why Catholic Relief Services and the Pon-tifical Council for Justice and Peace highlighted thesignificant impact solar solutions have madearound the world its recent Vatican II Social ImpactInvesting Conference. The Vatican is interested inhow lifting developing world families up the energyaccess ladder can tap into their under-realizedeconomic potential. The answer needn’t be com-plicated or expensive; access to energy can beginwith one small, low-cost solar-powered task light.

The widespread adoption of mobile phones inAfrica in the mid-1990s provides an apt analogy.

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Mobile phones didn’t take off until telephone pro-viders developed inexpensive handsets and opera-tors began selling airtime in smaller, more af-fordable units. Once products matched their needsand budget, people throughout the continentadopted mobile phones, bypassing centralizedinfrastructure and opening up new opportunitiesfor communication, business, and trade.

Today, solar products are doing the same withenergy access. As of mid-2015, over 13 millionbrand-quality portable solar lights had been soldworldwide, budding into a $300 million market.

Social Impact: Real Markets, Real ReturnsThe market of off-grid families and businesses

is ripe for opportunity. In this space, businessesand investors can make strong returns and have atremendous impact on the quality of life and eco-nomic futures of individuals, villages, and entirecountries.

In its Impact Investing Benchmark research,Cambridge Associates and GIIN found that fullyrealized and closed impact investment funds out-performed their conventional peer group by 10percentage points. Later funds that were not yetfully realized also showed returns on par with con-ventional investment strategies.

The University of Pennsylvania Wharton SocialImpact Initiative found that impact investing pri-vate equity funds (both realized and unrealized)yielded approximately a 13 percent returnbetween 2000 and 2014. When the social or en-vironmental mission of the company persistedafter the investment exit, returns were comparablewith non-mission-aligned exits.

These and other studies are debunking themyth that strong financial returns and social im-pact are incompatible. Investors with financialreturns as their guiding principle no longer need towait for real examples of international social-benefit companies that are scaling successfully andproviding commercial-level returns. The evidenceis clear and continues to mount.

As the market grows exponentially, more work-ing capital from traditional funds is needed toprovide greater numbers of people with energyand economic opportunity. Historically, sizableinvestments in energy have funded centralizedinfrastructure like government-backed grid expan-sion. However, in today’s emerging markets, themost efficient and scalable model is decentralizedenergy delivery. Small, individualized solutions aremore affordable and empower families to controltheir own energy usage.

Many solar energy businesses are leading theway with cutting-edge technology and comprehen-sive distribution networks, and millions of familiesin developing countries are poised to adopt thesenew, truly life-changing solutions. But the industryneeds more institutional investors to provide work-ing capital to take advantage of the rapidly ap-proaching inflection point.

The story of Bala Sulman and his chicken farmis just one of many entrepreneurial stories in thedeveloping world, where a few solar lamps signifi-cantly improve the bottom line. Imagine the eco-nomic prosperity that could be realized if morepeople in Suleman’s village or the surroundingcommunity made the same transition. Growingnumbers of successful entrepreneurs can burgeoninto a small business sector, raising untold num-bers of households out of poverty and into greatereconomic mobility.

Investments in off-grid energy today will have aripple effect for generations to come, deliveringreturns to investors and collectively improvingmacro-economies. The opportunity is at hand topower the arrival of these markets onto the globalstage.

Ned Tozun is the co-founder and CEO of d.light(US).

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Rudi Bressa

Maasai women are leading a solar revolution in Africa

aasai women are travelling to the count-ry's remotest villages to bring renewab-le, affordable energy and improve pe-

ople's living conditions.Poverty can (also) be defeated through energy

independence. Having night lights, the opportunityof charging electronic devices and storing energyfor the night can change lives, literally.

This is what’s happening in some rural villagesin Kenya, where more than 200 Maasai women gofrom one village to another riding their donkeys.They bring solar panels, rechargeable batteries andlighting kits. It’s a real revolution both for womenwho now have access to economic activities andfor the inhabitants of those villages that don’t haveaccess to the national electricity grid.

The project realised by the Green Energy Africaallows Maasai women to sell solar panels, rech-argeable batteries and lights at 300 Kenyan shil-lings (about 3 dollars) per unit. This makes themearn some money to buy other kits, becoming aperfect green economy model.

Maasai women bring energy to rural villages“For us, the impact of solar technology is unpa-

ralleled,” said Jackeline Naiputa, head of Osopuko-Edonyinap, one of the five-women groups bringingenergy in the area. Naiputa’s son was forced tostay up at night to protect their goats from wild

animals. “Light scares hyenas, so my son is nowable to sleep soundly inside,” she added.

Clean energy accessible to allOne of the United Nations’ Sustainable Develo-

pment Goals is ensuring access to affordable, reli-able, sustainable and modern energy for all by2030. Renewables can play a determining role inachieving this goal even if one out of five peoplecurrently don’t have access to electricity. Yet,thanks to projects of this kind is possible changingvillages’ lot in developing countries.

Another important environmental aspect has tobe considered. The access to technologies like solarenergy and energy storage allows ever more peop-le freeing themselves from fossil fuels and fire-wood. Not only solar power protects forests, but italso improves the health of women and childrenwho often get sick for inhaling smoke.

Being located close to the equator, Kenya has ahuge potential in developing solar energy, andMaasai women did understand that.

Rudi Bressa is a professional environmental jour-nalist.

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Victoria Slater

Living off the grid in the 21st century

hen I think of living off the grid, a lotcomes to mind, specifically, livingsustainably and self-sufficiently while

using renewable energy to provide electrical powerand water. But what does living off the grid actual-ly mean?

“The grid” refers to the electrical grid that pro-vides us with electrical power, water, and sewageand trash removal. Living off of it refers to a dis-connect of this power, perhaps by using no powerat all or using renewable energy you produce your-self. Some people choose to do this so they can livelife simply and sustainably, while others want anew experience and a unique place to live.

The truth is this: Completely living off the gridisn’t that realistic, particularly in the 21st century.Who really wants to move to the middle of nowhe-re, use a composting toilet and forgo the Internet?

We spoke with individuals living nearly off thegrid, to get some tips and tricks to help you livemore sustainably and reduce your reliance onelectrical power.

Solar Panels as an Alternative Energy SourceTruly off-grid homes are built with only

sustainable resources and use no electrical power.Typically, they’re easier to build in rural areas whereyou havemoreland. If you wantto keep your homeinthe city and still use electricity, purchasing or ma-king solar panels can allow you to reduce or comple-tely eliminate your reliance on the electrical grid.

Solar panels work by absorbing the sun’s ener-gy and converting it into electricity. They can be

installed on the roof or near the house and convertenergy to the inside of the home.

One of many alternatives to using the electricalgrid, solar panels are a cost-effective and greenway to bring energy to your home. Even if youdon’t live in an area where the sun shines all thetime, a generator allows you to store energy forfuture use, so you can capitalize on the sun whenit’s out and still have energy when it’s not. DedeCummings, founder of Green Writers Press tries tolive sustainably in all aspects of her life. She do-esn’t consider herself a true off-gridder (she stilldrives a car, for example), but her passive solarhome is just about as energy efficient as it can get.

She recommends using solar panels as a firststep to living off the grid; it has allowed her to heather home and water efficiently, completely elimi-nating her reliance on outside electrical power forthese comforts. In order to heat water, she instal-led solar hot water pipes connecting the roof to awater tank used for storage.

You can save the power your solar panels gene-rate for your future use, or because some utilitycompanies will pay you for your excess energy, youcan convert this power into a small stream of addi-tional income. Cummings says using alternativeenergy sources isn’t all that challenging if youbudget correctly and take advantage of state andfederal government tax credits and rebates.

Solar Water Pumps and Water StorageSolar water pumps are powered by solar pa-

nels, allowing you to access nearby water in a cost-

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effective, sustainable way. Small amounts of watercan move over a longer duration of time, perfectfor residential consumers who don’t need massquantities of water.

Sia Mohajer from Ontario Solar Panels recom-mends solar water pumps, as they are great evenin low sunlight conditions. Plus, the solar outputremains constant throughout the day, so you re-ceive a steady output of water. In order for solarwater pumps to be effective, you’ll need to be nearsome sort of water source, such as a well or lakewhere you can retrieve water. To further reduceyour need for outside water sources, purchase anadditional water storage tank to collect rainwater.You can store water either above or below ground.

Growing Your Own FoodMaintaining your own garden to grow fruits,

vegetables and herbs can drastically decrease yourreliance on outside food sources. Not only can yourgarden be healthier than processed foods, butoften it’s healthier than alternative fruits and vege-tables because they’re fresher and have less pesti-cides.

Most of our food travels thousands of milesfrom farm to table, requiring tons of energy. Bygrowing your own food, you reduce your relianceon outside vendors and reduce your green foot-print versus had you purchased all of your foodfrom an outside source, like a grocery store.

If you live in an area where you can’t grow foodyear-round, consider purchasing or building agreenhouse that uses solar energy to heat itself.You can grow food regardless of the season or localweather conditions.

Reduce, Reuse, RecycleIf you truly want to live off the grid, you can

hand-wash clothes instead of using an electricwashing machine and burn candles instead of usinglight bulbs, for example, but this isn’t realistic forall people. You can make small changes to reduceyour overall energy use, which will decrease yourreliance on energy in general. Running thedishwasher in the evenings, washing only full loadsof laundry, lowering the temperature in your homewhile you’re at work and purchasing energy-efficient appliances are all ways to help reduceyour energy usage.

Americans represent only 5% of the world po-

pulation yet consume 24% of the world’s energy,and a lot of this energy is wasted on things wedon’t even use, such as appliances plugged in butnot in use. Before you leave the kitchen, make sureto turn off the lights and unplug that blender – itwill save you a lot of energy, and money, in thelong run!

True off-gridders are minimalists: They make dowith what they have or go without; they recycleand reuse everything from glass containers tobuilding materials. They’re creative and find waysto reuse everything. When they need something,they purchase used items online or at local thriftstores. All of these items required energy and powerto make, so by purchasing used items, you’re redu-cing the energy required to make new items.

Composting is a great way to recycle greenery.By decomposing unwanted food and greens, thenutrients of food waste are returned into the soil.This is the ultimate reusing tip because you canthen reuse this soil to fertilize your garden. You canalso compost items you probably never consideredeating, like flower petals.

You don’t need to purchase fancy or expensivecomposting bins. Composting can really be doneanywhere in your backyard, no bins required. Theultimate off-grid goal is to have zero waste so youdon’t have to rely on waste removal services. Re-ducing your waste in general is a great first step.

Green TechnologyGreen technology can be expensive, but don’t

let the cost deter you. Costs have gone down inrecent years, and you can save thousands of dol-lars on electricity bills over the course of theirlifetime. A small cost upfront can allow you to livesustainably for years to come.

The government offers some rebates and in-centives to encourage green technology usage,which can help to partially offset the high costs. Ifit’s still too expensive, you can even build your ownsolar panels. Think long term: green technologyincreases the assessed value of your home, andthey are increasingly in high demand due to risingenergy costs.

Victoria Slater is copywriter at QLCredit.

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Rafiqul Islam

Pay-as-you-go irrigation aims to cut water usein Bangladesh

armers will receive smart cards they can useto pay for their water use, instead of paying afixed cost to middlemen.

Elias Ali has been picking weeds and waste forhours from his paddy field in southeastern Bangla-desh, preparing it for irrigation. Every week, hewalks half a kilometre to collect the water heneeds from private pumps.

Ali and fellow farmers currently pay 4,000 taka($51) each per year to middlemen in exchange forirrigation on their one-acre plots in Feni district.But water frequently seeps out of the earthencanals that supply the pumps, wasting significantamounts, Ali said. "The waste increases our costs,as pump owners also charge us for water that'sleaked," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"When we experience a loss in crop productiondue to floods or droughts, we can no longer affordthe high price of irrigation, which fuels tensionbetween pump owners and farmers," he said.

Water is a precious commodity in Bangladesh -abundant during the monsoon from June to Oc-tober, but scarce in the dry season from Novemberto March.

Abul Hye Bhuiyan, a farmer and president ofthe Pathannagar Water Management Group, saidmany farmers simply cannot cultivate crops in thedry season due to the high cost of irrigation.

Sometimes they have no choice but to sellstored crops to pay for water, Ali said. But Bhuiyanand Ali are hopeful. The Bangladesh government

plans to install water meters across the MuhuriProject, a 60,258-hectare irrigation area suppliedby the Feni, Muhuri and Milenia rivers, to reflectfarmers' water costs more accurately.

The scheme is part of the Irrigation Manage-ment Improvement Project, a government-ledinitiative to modernise irrigation systems, includingthe Muhuri Project, from 2015 to 2019.

The scheme has financial support from the Asi-an Development Bank and the Bangladesh WaterDevelopment Board. About 800 water meters willbe installed, as well as new water pumps, withwater supplied through underground pipelines.

Farmers will receive rechargeable smart cardsthey can use to pay for their water use, instead ofpaying a fixed cost to middlemen.

Humayyun Kabir, extension overseer at theWater Development Board, said around 2,000hectares (4,942 acres) of land would be broughtunder the irrigation scheme initially, with some 80pumps due to be installed by 2017.

He expects middlemen to gradually removetheir own pumps.The board estimates the renova-tion will be finished by 2019, when all 60,238hectares will be equipped with meters and pumps.

Rafiqul Islam is a freelance contributor to theThomson Reuters Foundation.

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Paul Gubbins and Julie Zollmann

Beyond the pricetag: The real benefits of off-grid solar

xploring the affordability and value of solarhome solutions.

If you’ve ever handled kerosene or set italight, you’ll know it is disgusting. If you use it theway most of Kenya’s low income families use it–ina tiny tin with a small wick—for lighting your ho-me, you’ll inhale a lot of smoke, the entire placewill reek of gas and smoke, your children will strainto read under its dismal light, and if light is neededin another room, you’ll need to precariously totearound the tiny lamp, hoping not to spill keroseneall over the floor.

We repeat, kerosene is awful. But at aroundKSh 60 – 75 (USD 60 – 75 cents) per liter [1], illu-minating kerosene (or paraffin) is also really, reallycheap, which explains why three quarters of Ken-ya’s poorest households use it as a primary energysource for lighting their homes[1].

It’s the disgusting part—not the savings—making many Kenyans increase their energy ex-penditures to acquire solar home solutions.Wehave seen some claims that solar lighting solutionslike M-KOPA and BBOXX make sense to users be-cause they save money.For example, BBOX esti-mates that its clients save $2 per month on avera-ge.[2]Stephan Faris writing for Bloomberg refe-renced a widely-quoted study (also referenced onM-KOPA’s website):

“According to a 2014 survey, an average off-grid household in Kenya spends about 75¢ a day onenergy, or $272 a year—$164 on kerosene, $36 oncharging their mobile phone, and $72 on batteries.M-Kopa estimates a customer saves about $750

over the first four years by switching to its basicsolar kit.”[3]

But our work on the Kenya Financial Diariesmade us sense that these estimates of budgetsavings were off for low-income households. Veryfew of our off grid respondents ever paid to chargetheir phones or buy batteries.In fact, when welooked at Diaries households’ total expenditureson all energy—including lighting, phone charging,and cooking (energy that is not replaced by a solarunit)—we found the median household was spen-ding only KSh 262 per month (or about 4.2 percentof median total consumption expenditure of KSh6,223 per month), equating to about just $32 peryear.

Since the Diaries sample is small and focusedon low income people, we also looked at availablenational datasets to get a more representativeestimate of Kenyans’ energy spending and to mo-del just how long it would take for different incomegroups to achieve net savings by only shifting theirexisting expenditures. For expenditure data, wereferenced the nationally representative 2005Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS)and the 2008 and 2015 panels of a large survey ledby Tavneet Suri and Billy Jack to assess the impactsof M-PESA.

Though some of this data is quite old, keroseneprices remain in a similar price range, though theyfluctuate regularly with the price of oil and actuallydeclined in 2011 after a reduction in kerosenetaxes.To assess the financial attractiveness of solarlighting solutions, we compared estimates of kero-

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sene spending to the pricing models of two leadingoff-grid solar solutions:

· M-KOPA’s basic home kit, which requires adeposit of KSh 3500 and payments of KSh 50 perday for one year to own the system;

· BBOXX’s “LIGHT” product, which requires adeposit of KSh 590 upfront and monthly payments

of KSh 590 for the first three years (after whichaccessories, like lights are paid for) and Ksh 440 forthe next seven years which covers maintenanceand payments towards full ownership after year10.

The first plot in Figure 2 below shows survey-based estimates of monthly kerosene spending forrural off-grid households at each national con-sumption decile, from those living at consumptionper capita levels among the poorest 10 percent tothose living at consumption levels enjoyed by therichest 10 percent. We draw primarily on the 2008representative M-PESA panel survey for this data,since it is our most recent source.Though still a bit

outdated, as noted above, kerosene prices todayare quite similar.The second plot shows the num-ber of months to net savings for all levels of kero-sene spending in the range of KSh 50 and 1000 permonth for the M-KOPA and BBOXX systems, withvertical lines referencing the mean kerosene spen-ding levels for rural, off grid households in deciles1, 5 and 10.

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According to most recent estimate from 2008,the mean rural off-grid household spends around

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KSh 370 per month on kerosene[1].Presuming thathousehold spends around KSh 100 on phonecharging per month[2] and purchased a solar homesystem to replace both kerosene and phonecharging costs, they would only achieve net savingson M-KOPA in 48 months and on BBOX they wouldnot generate any savings as its monthly financingcost of KSh 590 exceeds their kerosene spen-ding.Rural off-grid households that classify in thepoorest 30% of all Kenyans, spend around KSh 295per month on kerosene and at this spending level,investing in one of these solutions is an even grea-ter stretch.With M-KOPA, they would only be ableto achieve net savings in between 45 to 76 months(depending on how much they currently spend on

phone charging).Another way to compare the financial benefits

of the M-KOPA and BBOXX systems is by compu-ting net present value (NPV). Figure 3 below,shows the NPV of a solar home system investmentafter 5 years of ownership at 5 different levels ofmonthly kerosene spend (and assuming thehousehold spends KSh 100 per month on mobilephone charging). The NPV can be interpreted asthe cumulative savings that are generated over the5 year period time discounted by the central bankrate of 10.5% (cash flows farther in the future arediscounted at a higher rate than cash flows nearerto the time of purchase).

Based on these models, it’s unsurprising thatthese kinds of solutions are not yet ubiquitousamong the poorest. Recent estimates suggest thatonly 5.7 percent of the poorest 40% of all Kenyans

are using a solar solution as their primary sourcefor lighting[3]. But, even in the middle of the inco-me distribution, many are willing to pay more forsolar than they spend today on dirty and inconve-

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nient sources of energy.Solar units provide cleaner,better quality light.They are more convenient,reducing trips to shopping centres to buy kerose-ne.They allow users to potentially listen to theradio with more regularity and charge their phoneswith more convenience, even if there is no costsaving for many years. More convenient chargingcan even entice some to upgrade their phones tosmartphones knowing they have a reliable way tocharge every night.All of this value means thateven some very low income Kenyans have found away to pay for solar solutions (See our blog, SolarStories to understand their experiences).

This analysis highlights some key takeawaysthat go beyond solar alone:

1. When talking about delivering excitingtechnology in low income markets, we need to berealistic about affordability and continue to seeklower cost solutions to make them accessible forthe poor.

2. For solutions that deliver new and bettervalue, what people spend today tells us a bit abouttheir budget capacity, but it is not a reliable indica-tor of willingness to pay.

3. For solutions that offer a new and betterservice, cost savings is not the most importantmetric of value

[1] Kerosene prices from Energy regulatorycommitteehttp://www.erc.go.ke/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=162&Itemid=666. Keroseneprices reached a high of about KSh 95 in 2011.Population kerosene use for lighting obtained from2016 FinAccess household survey. The estimate

presented here corresponds to the FinAccess 2016estimated proportion of Kenya’s adult population(ranking in the bottom 40% of an asset-basedwealth index) that uses kerosene as the primaryenergy source for lighting their home.

[2] http://www.bboxx.co.uk/customers/[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-

mkopa-solar-in-africa/[4] This is based on data from the 2008 M-PESA

panel rather than the 2005 KIHBS, allowing us toget a more recent data point.But, since the M-PESApanel combines kerosene, charcoal and firewood,we use the KIHBS ratio of expenditure on keroseneto these other estimates to arrive at this figure.Thisis a higher end estimate, given that only Kenyalocations with at least 1 M-PESA agent were in-cluded in the M-PESA panel sample and so theresulting sample was more urban than the nationaldistribution.

[5] None of the publicly available nationalhousehold surveys that we reviewed separatelytracked spending on phone battery charging.Veryfew Diaries households paid for charging, usuallycharging with friends or at a workplace.Those whodid pay occasionally paid KSh 5 per charge. Fewwithout electricity have smartphones requiringfrequent charging.

[6] 2016 FinAccess household survey

Paul Gubbins leads FSD Kenya's research on con-sumer insights and digital finance.

Julie Zollmann is an independent consultant.

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Christopher Koulouris

The rise of off the grid communities

he idea of enjoying a totally self-sufficientlifestyle, while still making use of all the con-veniences of modern life, once seemed like a

far-fetched dream, and you’d be forgiven for thin-king it still is.

It may come as a surprise, therefore, to learnthat the opportunities for self-sufficiency havebeen steadily growing, so much so that off-gridcommunities are springing up everywhere. Hereare a few reasons why their popularity is increasingall the time.

Financial benefits of living off the gridDuring the last few decades utilities have

become more and more expensive, while energycompanies continue to reap higher and higherprofits. Opting out of water, sewerage and powercharges certainly requires an initial outlay, but thevirtual wiping out of ongoing energy costs morethan makes up for that.

For example, the Three Rivers Recreation Areais roughly a one-hour drive from Bend, Oregon andcovers some 4,000 acres. There are about 500homes there, all of which are off the grid. Solarpanels and wind turbines supply the electricity andthe inhabitants also use back-up generators. Wateris sourced via local wells and also through haulageservice operators.

Other benefitsBesides financial benefits, you’ll find that many

of these communities grow around ideologicalpolicies and systems. For example, The Way Inter-

national operates as an off-grid community spreadover a multitude of locations throughout the Uni-ted States and worldwide. With their headquartersin rural Ohio this is a non-denominational groupattracting those with specific interests in biblicalresearch and teaching.

Over in Earthaven the people of this aspiringeco-village near Asheville, North Carolina are inte-rested in developing a sustainable, holistic culturethat is kind to the Earth. Natural materials are usedfor building homes that are solar powered andthose working on the land adopt permacultureprinciples.

Challenges of off-grid livingYou could be forgiven for thinking it’s time to

pack up and move to one of these wonderfulcommunities right away, however, living off thegrid brings risks as well as rewards. Your home ismore hands on when power, heat and water don’tnecessarily arrive instantaneously. Sometimesthings go wrong and it’s down to you as a homeo-wner to understand why and to put it right. Youmay be restricted in terms of what you can do andwhen. For instance, if there is insufficient powerbecause there has been less sunshine than usualyou may not be able to run a washing machine fora while.

On balance, however, there are more advan-tages than disadvantages to living off the grid.People have to think harder about their impact onthe environment, often they learn new skills if theyare growing their own food and begin to live more

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responsibly in terms of what they consume andhow they recycle. A good tip is to try living in oneof the communities for a short period of time –some homes are available as vacation rentals andprovide a genuine taste of the off-grid living expe-rience.

Christopher Koulouris is Editor in Chief at scally-wagandvagabond.com.

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Elizabeth Littlefield

Off-Grid energy for rural communities: bright promiseand caution lights ahead

t the global climate change conference inMarrakech this week, big issues about thepolitical winds and worries about the pro-

gress of climate finance will be high on the agenda.But one of the good news stories is happening justbelow the radar of the climate talks and that is therevolution in distributed, small-scale, off-grid cleanenergy.

Off-grid renewable energy for rural areas isbooming. It has captured the attention and in-vestment agendas of aid and development financeorganizations along with the imagination of sociallyresponsible investors and techno-optimists.

The off-grid energy sector is now proving itselfto be commercially viable and scalable. The busi-ness models range from a solar home kits thatprovide a single panel that can produce enoughpower to power a light and a cell phone chargerand a fan to larger biogas digesters that provide anetwork of poorer villages with power by extrac-ting gas from agricultural waste.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation(OPIC) is the U.S. government’s development fi-nance institution. Since 2009, our off-grid energyportfolio across the developing world has grown tomore than $140 million, bringing light to familiesand villages located far from their nation’s electri-city grids.

For example, Greenlight Planet, an OPIC inves-tee, makes affordable solar lighting and phonecharging devices and is now expanding its network

in Africa and Asia.Furthermore, in Nigeria, an OPIC loan to a small

company called Txtlight Power Solutions, doingbusiness as Nova Lumos, is helping to finance theexpansion of their solar rooftop business. Lumos’solar home kits consist of a solar panel, battery,LED lights and a mobile phone charger and aresmall enough to be carried by foot or bicycle, aresimple to install, and allow customers to buy solar-powered electricity on a lease-to-own basis. Todate, Txtlight has successfully deployed over20,000 systems to customers in Nigeria. With OPICsupport, Lumos will be able to provide access toreliable electricity to some of the nearly 90 millionNigerians who are not connected to the electricitygrid.

Our team is proud of the agency’s pioneeringrole, and excited about the road ahead. However,several sources of uncertainty are evident.

A technological revolution has brought an exci-ting profusion of clean energy devices into themarket within a very short period of time. Between2010 and 2015, investors poured more than $500million into off-grid energy businesses, and nearly89 million people currently use at least one solaroff-grid lighting product in their homes.

Some of these products will prove to be reliab-le, efficient, durable, scalable and capable of gar-nering loyalty among end users and confidenceamong investors. However, many will fail, and weshould view those failures as drivers of advance-

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ment and competition. So managing expectationswill be key, and developing international qualitystandards for these new technologies will be apowerful means of concentrating efforts on themost promising models.

The finance and economics of energy provisionis likewise undergoing a revolution. Massive, fossil-fueled grids operated by regulated utilities havebalance sheets, time horizons and regulatory chal-lenges that are far different than off-grid renewab-le projects. In the off-grid sector, entrepreneursand governments are only beginning to experimentwith business models and regulatory systems togovern them. The sector is mostly made of youngcompanies struggling to find necessary equity capi-tal to fuel their growth.

Fine-tuning a business model that is attractiveto both equity and debt providers is difficult. Somecompanies earn revenue from equipment sales, orlong-term leases. Others, from usage fees. . Stillothers take a franchise approach, expanding villageby village. Each of these models has had someaccomplishments and some setbacks, which meansthat lenders and investors are steadily honing in onthe ingredients for success. Ultimately, this willcreate a strong foundation for commercial finan-cing in the medium term.

The local regulatory contexts in which thesecompanies are seeking to thrive will be highlyconsequential, too.

Each developing nation has a unique profile ofenergy endowments, infrastructure and needs. Themajor fluctuations that the world has witnessed indemand, supply and prices of oil, coal and gas inrecent years will undoubtedly affect the future ofoff-grid renewable energy supply. Rural populati-ons in some nations, for example, are still heavilyreliant on diesel generators for electricity. Themarket for diesel generators in Africa is estimatedto be an astonishing 60gw installed per annum.

Despite the current low fossil fuel prices, manygovernments continue to subsidize diesel (directlyor indirectly) which will undermine the growth oftheir off-grid energy markets. Fossil fuel subsidiesworldwide are estimated to be between $500billion and $650 billion annually. Subsidies forrenewable energy are estimated to be one quarterof that. Put simply, off-grid technology now hasenough momentum to get one step ahead of thefossil-fuel world, but it is not free of its shadow.

Finally, it is worth recalling that the business ofpower (electricity) is deeply intertwined with thebusiness of power (politics). The electrical grids ofpoorer nations are legacy assets that -- at least atthe edge of the existing electrical grid wherepower supply can be unreliable -- may soon findtheir monopoly threatened by these new and so-metimes more reliable off-grid alternatives. Estab-lished fossil fuel-based companies and governmentagencies may stand by idly in the face of gradualobsolescence. Backlashes will come.

OPIC will continue to support off-grid renewab-le energy companies in the developing world. Witha conservative balance sheet, expert staff andmandate to take a long-term perspective, theagency is uniquely qualified to survive the ups anddowns ahead. It is crucial that we do so. There arestill 1.2 billion people across the globe who haveno access to the power grid, and millions morewith unreliable power. We can bring them clean,affordable, reliable power and light, and we will.

Elizabeth L. Littlefield is President and CEO of theOverseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC),the development finance institution of the U.S.Government.

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Kagondu Njagi

As solar power expands the work day, incomes risein eastern Kenya

iolet Karimi spends her days as she alwayshas, attending to household chores andworking on her farm.

But when the sun goes down, she now has asecond job, thanks to the arrival of solar lights inthis town in eastern Kenya.

Each evening the widow leaves her three child-ren studying at home by the light of a solar lanternand takes fruit and vegetables harvested on herfarm to sell in Embu's open air market.

"I collect my stock and head to the marketwhere I trade until late in the evening," said the36-year-old. "This is possible because the solarlights in the market and the rest of Embu town areswitched on the whole night."

On a good day, she said, she can bring home asmuch as $30 - at least three times as much as shecould sell in a shorter evening, before the lightsmade longer trading hours possible.

"Customers want to shop in the evening becau-se that is when they leave work," she said. "Thesolar lighting has encouraged them to stay and buyas long as they like."

Solar energy - for lighting and to power busi-nesses - is gaining a foothold across rural Kenya. Intowns like Embu it is opening the way for newbusinesses, or new business hours, and giving fami-lies a chance to boost their incomes.

Safer, richerKarimi says the solar lights that shine over the

Embu market each evening have other benefits aswell. Even after working late into the evening atthe market, she feels comfortable hiring a motor-bike taxi to take her home.

"The streets are well lit with solar energy andso I am not afraid of traveling at night becausethere is security," she said.

Others in Embu County have seen benefits fortheir businesses from the installation of the smallsolar grids, which collect solar energy, store someof it in batteries for use at night, and distribute itto customers.

Joe Njiru pays $10 a month to the Embu Countysolar micro grid, but makes five times as muchfrom his bar business, he said.

The bar's eight light bulbs and satellite TV helpkeep customers chatting, debating local politics,and buying his beer past midnight.

Two years ago, few customers would stay past8 pm, he said. The bar had a power connection tothe national grid, but was often beset by poweroutages.

"Every day there were blackouts in the eveningbecause that is when people with illegal connec-tions would interfere with electricity as they triedto switch on," said Njiru. "Customers could not staylong because they feared to be mugged on theirway home."

Energy company officials also sometimes visi-ted to disconnect his power, saying he had notpaid his monthly bill, Njiru said.

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Now he uses a mobile phone banking system,M-Pesa, to top up his monthly credit.

"For us, investing in the solar project is a dou-ble win," said Embu County Governor MartinWambora. "Solar energy is cheaper to maintain inthe long term and puts us in solidarity with theworld's push for a global green economy."

High costs for mpower hungryThat's not to say solar energy is working for

everyone. Susan Muthoni, for instance, would liketo invest in a laundry business.

But to power a washing machine and a refri-gerator for serving soft drinks to customers shewould have to pay as much as $150 every month inenergy costs to the Embu County micro grid becau-se of the large amount of energy the items consu-me.

A typical solar energy customer, who uses thepower to light up their home and run a weldingbusiness, pays about $10 a month, said FrancisMuchiri, the communication and knowledge ma-nagement officer with Advocacy for Gender andEnergy in Kenya.

"This is where development partners shouldcome in and support solar micro grids with fi-nances so that they can be able to expand theirgeneration and storage capacity," said Lois Giche-ru, the chief executive officer of Solafrique Ltd., anenterprise that works with African communities tohelp them access renewable energy.

Solar advocates say that with solar lighting es-tablished, Kenya's counties should now focus ongenerating enough power to run businesses.

Mendi Njonjo, the regional director at HivosEast Africa, which works on sustainable energyissues, said Kenya's counties are diversifying intomanufacturing, and will need to cut their energycosts by investing in cheaper sources of power.

Kagondu Njagi is a freelance contributor for theThomson Reuters Foundation, based in Nairobi andwriting on climate change issues.

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Christabel Ligami

Pay-as-you-go solar model brings security to smallKenyan communities

eep down in the small village of Tikoishi, inKajiado county about 100 kilometers offNairobi city, both men and women are

leaving to tell stories of their sleepless nights andbattles with the wild animals to protect their live-stock.

Living on the edge of Nairobi National Park, lo-cated in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, the Maasaicommunities have been battling consistent attacksby the wild animals that kill and eat their livestockin the night.

The marginalized Kenya Community entirelydepends on livestock for their livelihood as theylive in arid areas but for the past years the menhave been spending the nights outside in the coldto keep wild animals from eating their livestock.

It has been entirely the men’s work to keep offthese wild animals in the night using all possiblemeans including lighting fires the whole night nearthe cattle bomas (cattle enclosure), using lanternlight, chasing the animals away using the spot-lights. This has been very risky to their lives as theyare instead attacked by the wild. Women in thisregion have lost their husbands and sons who areon some occasions attacked by the wild animals inthe night while guarding their herd and some havesustained serious injuries in the process.

But a solar project being spearheaded by Sun-Transfer is changing lives in this region and menare now starting to spend more time in their hou-ses.

SunTransfer’s related companies for distributi-on and/or assembling, like the one in African, arein Kenya and Ethiopia.

In Kenya, the company has installed over 3,000solar panels to individual rural homes and five todispensaries.

The project consists of a pay-as-you-go finan-cing model that enables families in rural off-gridareas to purchase a solar home system via an in-stalment credit. With the money otherwise spenton fuel for kerosene lamps, the credit can be paidoff within three years.

According to Samuel Wanjiru, SunTransfer ma-nager in Kajiado, the pay-as-you-go model offersits solar systems either on cash or credit terms,depending on what suits the customer most.

“Depending on the package, the interest rate is1 percent for a period of between two and threeyears if the customer opts for the credit mode ofpayment,” Wanjiru said.

The project in Kajiado is being spearheaded bywomen, who are helping in the marketing andawareness creation about use of affordable rene-wable energy to the homesteads — a unique oc-curance in the region, since Maasai women arehighly discriminated and are known to stay at ho-me looking after their families.

Beatrice Marpe, 55, is a women leader in Tikoi-shi. Although her main role is to help women inthis village solve their marital issues, she is now theambassador of renewable solar power in this region.

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Her role became complicated after womenstarted complaining about losing their husbandsdue to the attacks by wild animal and/or complainsthat they are not spending much time with theirhusbands because they are out the whole nightguarding their livestock and the whole day grazingthem.

“When SunTransfer approached me in July2014 with their solar idea and how I could use it toprotect my livestock against the wild animals —although not sure of it — I took it,” the mother offour said. “I was not sure that it would work asthey explained because I had not seen it workanywhere else before.” She said that she had justlost her husband and was desperate because hisrole of guarding our livestock had now been enti-rely taken over by her younger son.

She took the home solar system package thathas both the lighting and a television system foruse both for the livestock and in the house.

“With the solar energy, the light not only scaresaway the wild animals and keeps off our worriesabout losing our cattle at night, it has enabled mysons to spend the nights in the house with the restof the family members,” she said. “Compared withkerosene and firewood, the cost is now low and itis more convenient. We are also able to watch TVunlike before — something that is rare in thisarea.”

Before installing the solar power, her house-hold spent at least US$0.50/day on kerosene aloneto light outside in the animal bomas where her 172cattle sleep. “Since installing the solar, I have nothad a problem with the wild animals,” she said.

As women visited her home, she would explainhow the solar energy works and encourage themto take it up too. A majority of the women wereinterested, but the challenge was convincing theirmen to agree to the idea.

“I realized very few women would convincetheir men to take up the solar energy, and with theMaasai tradition, a woman cannot overrule theman’s decision, so I decided to change tact andencourage them to combine efforts,” she explai-ned. She formed a group of five women willing totake up the initiative and encourage them to con-tribute at least $5 or whatever they could afford toa central fund.

“Once the money is enough to give the first in-stalment based on what package they wanted,

they go ahead and pay and start contributing forthe other family in their group,” she said. “This hasbeen working very well and the men are now evengetting more involved.”

One such family that has benefited is that of Si-kampe Kotikash, who lives in the same neigh-borhood with Marpe. They have installed the solarpower only for their livestock. “We needed thelight for the livestock more than for our householduse,” Sikampe said. His two wives, Sylivia Sikampeand Purity Sikampe, teamed up to contribute tothe first instalment for installing the solar power.

“We make beaded bracelets and sell to peoplein the village or sometimes at the market,” SyliviaSikampe said. “After being introduced to the solarenergy idea, we decided to actively sell the beadsand install it. Our husband, after seeing it work, gotmore interested and has now taken over the deci-sion to pay the remaining amount.”

She said that her husband no longer has tosleep outside, and their livestock is safe.

“The solar light, scares the hyenas away, so wedon’t have to worry about losing our animals atnight,” Sikampe said. “All my brothers and most ofmy friends have installed the solar power after mebecause they have now seen the benefits.”

SunTransfer Kenya was established in 2009 toprovide full power access to off-grid areas. “Ourmain target is to install power for families in ruraloff-grid areas,” Wanjiru said. The lifespan of theSunTransfer solar is 20 years, enabling the familiesto significantly reduce their lighting expenses.

The solar systems come in different packages— ST20 comes with four light bulbs, a 20-wattsolar panel, 12-volt battery, and phone chargingkit. The ST50 comes with five light bulb, a 50-wattsolar panel, and 38-volt battery system. ST100 hassix light bulbs, a 100-watt solar panel, 24-inch digi-tal TV, phone charging kit, and DC/AC inverter.

Installation and maintenance of the solar is do-ne free of charge. “The logistics however can bevery challenging — villages in Kajiado in particulardo not have good roads so delivery of the solarpanels to the people and access to some homes isdifficult,” Wanjiru said.

Christabel Ligami is freelance journliast in Nairobi.

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Ann Brown

Rwandan entrepreneur’s solar-powered mobile kioskscharge phones, create jobs

obile phones are essential in Rwanda.More than 70 percent of the populationowns a one and many people own two

or more. Yet, just 22 percent of people have accessto electricity, meaning they have trouble chargingall these phones, according to the Rwanda UtilitiesRegulatory Authority.

This is where entrepreneur Henri Nyakarundisaw a niche. His business, African Renewable Ener-gy Distributor (ARED), consists ofsolar-poweredcharging kiosks that provide phone charging as wellas airtime and mobile money transfers. He hasdeveloped a franchise system where people run hiskiosks as their own businesses.

Nyakarundi won the American Society for Me-chanical Engineers’ Innovation Showcase whichrecognizes entrepreneurs for hardware-led socialventures.

The son of Rwandan refugees, Nyakarundiwasborn in Kenya and grew up in Burundi. He went toRwanda for the first time in 1996 on vacation afterthe war ended. Moving to Atlanta, U.S., in 1996,Nyakarundi attended university, earning a degreein computer science from Georgia State University.In 2012 he returned to live in Rwanda full time.

Nyakarundi spoke to AFKInsider on why he leftthe US to venture into the solar business in Rwan-da.

AFKInsider: Why did you leave the U.S.?Nyakarundi: I had built a successful trucking

business in Atlanta, but it can be really hard to

maintain a business in the U.S. Your life is all aboutwork. And during the economic crisis I started toreevaluate things. I didn’t just want to only makemoney. I wanted to do something that would helppeople.I was at a crossroads and I wanted to dosomething more meaningful with my life.

AFKInsider: The Rwanda you came home tomust have been a very different Rwanda.

Nyakarundi: Of course. Even though I grew upin Burundi, we would try to visit Rwanda and atthat time Rwanda was going through a lot of prob-lems. It was nothing but a desert. When I left,I toldmyself I would never come back but in 2008 I reallystarted looking into coming back. I really didn’t likethe social life of the U.S. Everything is about mo-ney, so I was really considering moving to Africa.Today, Rwanda is developing into a great countryfull of opportunities.

AFKInsider: How does your company, AfricanRenewable Energy Distributor, work?

Nyakarundi: It is a mobile solar kiosk platform Icreated to promote entrepreneurship at the baseof the pyramid using a low-cost franchise businessmodel. We offer solar-powered mobile kiosks,through which people can make money by lettingpeople charge their phones, among other services.

AFKInsider: Why the phone charging kiosk?Nyakarundi: When I came back to Rwanda I re-

alized renewable energy was a fast-growing sector

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and there was a lot of space for innovation. And itwas important for me to create something thatcatered to the African market. Cell phones aregrowing rapidly in Africa, yet electricity is still aproblem for so many, especially in Rwanda.

And I knew this would be challenging. For methat is the most exciting thing about this. There areso many challenges, and I love overcoming chal-lenges.

AFKInsider: How did you fund your startup?Nyakarundi: I have self funded the whole pro-

ject. It took two years to develop the kiosk but Iinitially came up with the idea in 2009 while still inthe U.S.

AFKInsider: Is the Rwandan government hel-pful to small business owners?

Nyakarundi: No, and I don’t expect them to be.Of course they have programs for small businessesand are starting an innovation program, but it ismy belief that governments should focus on otherthings besides innovation. Like all governments,the government in Rwanda moves too slowly totruly support innovators. Innovations is somethingthat has to be acted upon immediately and thegovernment is just too big, too slow to do that.

AFKInsider: What have been some of challen-ges you have faced?

Nyakarundi: Getting people to understand theimportance of innovation, as well as the usualstart-up challenges such as funding, development,and finding employees.

AFKInsider: How has business been?Nyakarundi: We’re growing. Right now we ha-

ve 25 kiosks, 30 percent of which are run by wo-men, and 5 percent are run by people with disabili-ties. We plan to have 100 more kiosks this year and500 total in Rwanda.

AFKInsider: Why should someone franchiserun one of your kiosks?

Nyakarundi: We take care of all the back endfor them, so all they have to do is plug into oursystem, take the training, and then find a location.

AFKInsider: What are you looking ahead for2016?

Nyakarundi: To finish the development of anew, updated kiosk and (development of softwarethat provides content) — M-Shiriki. With M-Shiriki,content providers will be able to use the new ki-osks to conduct surveys, provide educational con-tent and even conduct campaigns. Artists can evenupload content on to the server for purchase bythe end user. Content providers load their contenton African Renewable Energy Distributor’s centrali-zed hard drive. Users will have access to the con-tent. And we currently have a partnership with theRed Cross and have already put these kiosks at allof the refugee camps where a majority of the refu-gees are kids. The camps have a problem educatingthese kids, and now they can access educationalcontent from our kiosk. We also want to expandour coverage to Uganda, Kenya, and South Sudanover the next year.

Ann Brown is journalist, working for AFK Insider.

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Amy Bainbridge

Trading solar-generated power between householdsto change the way consumers buy electricity

he concept of bypassing major energy retai-lers to trade rooftop solar-generated electri-city between households, small businesses

and community groups is inching closer to reality.This month's arrival of the Tesla battery in

Australia is slated as a major shift in favour of con-sumers taking charge of their energy storage.

One Sydney entrepreneur has devised a systemthat would allow consumers to set up a virtualshop to trade their surplus energy with otherhouseholds, small businesses and communitygroups in their grid.

Jitendra Tomar, from the Sydney-based start-up Local Volts, said it was about changing the wayconsumers buy electricity. "Anybody, whetheryou're big or small, whether you're a farmer orresidential person, whether you're a high school ortennis club, can become an energy farmer," hesaid.

"If I'm buying electricity, I can say 'well I justwant to buy for next month' and I have a prefe-rence for rooftop solar coming from Manly, and ifthat's not enough for me, I will take somethingfrom New South Wales as long as it's rooftop solar,and if that's not enough, I'll go for windmills.

"And if you're people living in an apartmentand you want to buy from your tennis club, becau-se you like the price, you have a special price fortennis club members, you say 'yeah, I'll buy electri-city from my tennis club'. So finally we're going tohave a choice."

CitiPower and Powercor owns more than halfof the poles and wires in Victoria's power network.The company is installing 18 test sites for solarbattery storage as part of a three-year trial to lookat the network impact of solar batteries.

Glen Thomson, from CitiPower and Powercor,said he could see a future where traditional powergeneration was bypassed. "There's no doubt thatover time, the centralised model will come undergreater threat, as home-based generation grows,"he said.

"We see our grid as ultimately [being] the spineof allowing that to occur, as micro-grids are for-med, as home generation technologies are rolledout over the next decade or so. "We are looking atwhat is the best way to enable our grid to useinnovative technologies and enable customerchoice."

Homeowners, community centres jump onTesla trial

Homeowner Louise Holthouse had a battery in-stalled as part of the trial and said she was keen tosee the results. "We've really noticed that over the10 years we've been here, that power prices haveincreased, and our family is not a large family withonly two children," she said. "We've been given apassword and a module that we can get to on theinternet to check our consumption and also tocheck our storage in the battery."

The Institute for Sustainable Futures at the Uni-

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versity of Technology Sydney is conducting virtualtrials of local energy trading at five sites along theeastern seaboard. The Footscray Community ArtsCentre in Melbourne's Western suburbs is lookingto become the first organisation of its kind to bepowered by solar.

CEO and director Jade Lillie said the centre wasrunning a crowdfunding campaign to combine withphilanthropic donations to buy the panels and abattery. "We're putting 30 kilowatts of solar panelson this roof, which is the warehouse, and 10 kilo-watts of solar panels on Henderson House, which isthe heritage-listed building," she said. "What we'llbe able to do is actually through the Tesla batteryis store that energy during the day as well and thenuse it in the evening so we're less reliant onmainstream grid-based power sources."

Ms Lillie says the centre aimed to save $15,000in power bills each year. The project will also fundLED house lights for its performance space. TheAustralian Energy Council, which represents retai-lers and generators, said it was early days, butthere was work underway to study the implicationsof solar trading within the electricity grid.

With a large component of energy bills madeup of network fees and charges, it remains to beseen how much cheaper energy bills will be if con-sumers are able to trade between each other.

Amy Bainbridge is the ABC's Consumer AffairsReporter.

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Energy4Impact

Business mentorship gives entrepreneur a choice

kirya Magera was a small-scale farmerwho depended on proceeds from cottonto provide for his family. However, the

returns were poor because farming costs werehigh and there were no government subsidies. Sohe started to look for other ways to make a living.

In September, 2013, Mkirya, a resident ofMwanzabuliga village on the eastern shores ofLake Victoria in Tanzania, decided to invest themeagre earnings from his harvest into a new busi-ness. Having seen how he and his fellow villagershad to travel up to two kilometres just to powertheir mobile phones, he decided to set up solarphone-charging venture. He built a small structurewhere he installed a 60-Watt solar panel at a costof TZS 450,000 ($ 206). The business grew and hewas soon charging 20 phones a day.

In 2014 as he was striving to grow his business,Mkirya came to hear about GVEP and the work itwas doing with businesses to increase access toclean energy. He was offered mentorship on finan-cial, technical and business skills from GVEP underthe Capital Access for Renewable Energy Enterpri-ses (CARE2) programme which supports solar pho-ne charging businesses. Importantly, the men-torship helped him identify more business oppor-tunities in his area.

As his business started to attract more clienteleto the area, the ambitious entrepreneur felt theurge to expand. Through GVEP’s financial linkageMkirya obtained a TZS 1,000,000 ($ 459) loan fromTanzania Postal Bank in August, 2014, which heused to buy a 200- Watt solar system. He then

ventured into a hair cutting business alongsidephone charging. The barber shop picked up mo-mentum and within days he was attending to atleast five clients a day. His flourishing businessenabled him to clear the loan in a short time andsoon Mkirya was making an average of TZS360,000 ($ 165) a month, up from TZS 180,000 ($83).

“The financial assistance I received enabled meto meet the growing need for phone charging ser-vices in this area. The initial solar output could notsustain many clients at a go. Acquiring more capa-city meant more and happy customers,” saysMkirya.

His hair cutting business also registered re-markable growth as his income leaped from TZS75,000 ($ 34) per month in the few weeks of busi-ness start-up to TZS 225,000 ($ 103) per month.

“The business has immensely transformed mylife. Besides educating my children, I have beenable to plough the profits back to other economicactivities,” says the father of four. His two childrenare in secondary school while the rest have com-pleted school and are civil servants.

Mkirya has also bought four bulls that he usesto till his eight-acre field, from where he grows avariety of crops. He also offers ploughing servicesto neighbours at a fee. He has also bought fourdairy cows and makes money by selling their milk.“Initially, I only had three acres of land, but which Imanaged to increase as my farming business ex-panded,” he says.

His family life has also transformed. He has

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bought a motorbike that he uses for transport andhas constructed a hygienic modern pit latrine forhis home. He plans to set up a bigger shop in thearea later this year.

He says GVEP’s intervention has seen him over-come several obstacles in his business includingthe competition he faces from upcoming similarbusinesses in the area. Improved marketing andcustomer care skills have given him an edge.

“GVEP’s sustainable and impactful mentorshipto entrepreneurs like Mkirya has made it possiblefor them to provide energy and related services in

off-grid areas. We identify market opportunities inrespective areas and advise entrepreneurs to ven-ture into them for maximum returns,” says GVEP’sTanzania Country Manager Adam Mbwambo.

Energy 4 Impact is a non-profit organisation work-ing with local businesses to extend access to ener-gy in Africa.

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Tim Nixon

5 signs sustainability is the new engine for globaleconomic growth

trong crosswinds are in the global economy.The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here, withpervasive transparency, unlimited informati-

on access and accelerating disruptive technologyand change.

Rapid adaptation never has been more im-portant as corporates spread globally, facing newregulatory and environmental challenges acrosstheir operations and supply chains. Security andimmigration concerns are everywhere.

Climate change poses not only an environmen-tal threat, but has become a disruptive changeagent for business, driving new requirements forgrowth with lower carbon footprints. What is newin all this is flux the enormous economic opportu-nity created in the emerging global response tothese challenges.

But sustainability is the transformative econo-mic catalyst which also happily aligns with our ownbasic self-interest. Specifically, it’s about"sustainable growth," by which I mean increasingprosperity while at the same time improving en-vironmental and social performance.

Why does this "sustainable growth" matter somuch? The answer is because the great movers ofour global economy are orienting towards it, re-warding better performance and punishing risk.Here is how they are concentrated:

1. CustomersCustomers everywhere, of all sizes, increasingly

are asking about sustainability performance whenmaking purchasing decisions. On the business-to-business side, large players with even larger supplychains are requiring increasing disclosure and per-formance around greenhouse gas reduction, diver-sity, labor rights and anti-corruption. On the con-sumer side, as transparency and reporting getbetter, consumers are increasingly able to makeinformed decisions to buy products which cost thesame, but do less harm to the world.

2. RegulatorsNew regulatory frameworks around carbon,

diversity and many other sustainability relatedfactors are emerging and growing. Examples inclu-de the new European requirement that corporati-ons report on sustainability risk, and the U.S. CleanPower Plan, coupled with the corresponding dou-ble digit growth in the global consulting industry toadvise on these trends.

These "impact economy" frameworks areemerging, and will mandate that companies inno-vate in incredible new ways, to grow without doingsocial and environmental harm. These frameworkswill unleash a torrent of adaptive innovation, crea-ting unforeseen and surprising technological ad-vancement, and new potential for human prosperi-ty.

3. InvestorsInvestors are increasingly seeking less carbon-

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intensive and more environmentally and sociallyfriendly portfolios. Global bank HSBC recently re-ported that around 30 percent of all assets undermanagement are using some kind of sustainabilitystrategy or filter.

This trend is up from almost zero 10 years ago,and all of this money seeking new sustainablebusiness models will create opportunities for newentrants in the marketplace, and older players whocan adapt and thrive. It’s a capital rules reset, withan accidental but happy ethical bias. New fortuneswill be made for those who adapt, and the rulesdon’t necessarily favor the current economic andpolitical oligarchies.

4. New energyNew energy-infrastructure build-outs are

booming, especially in the developing world. TheCOP21 gathering of global policy-makers, corpora-tions, investors and innovators points more thanever to this enormous opportunity for economicgrowth.

The consequence of all this capital flowing intoenergy infrastructure not only will be economicgrowth as these systems are built out, but also newcapacity for access to the information and innova-tion which comes from reliable energy.

The end game is a developing world withubiquitous, cheap and renewable energy, and ahuge new economic powerhouse with its human

capital no longer inhibited by the daily struggle toeat and stay alive.

5. ValuesWith all of this movement towards finding and

enforcing sustainable growth, we inadvertently arefinding a common language across cultures, religi-ons and even politics. The headlines are full ofnews about what divides us ideologically and spiri-tually, but these belie the great areas of commona-lity shared by the vast majority of human beings.I’m talking about the instincts we all share for pre-servation of those we love, and the desire to seesubsequent generations enjoy meaningful andhealthy lives.

Sustainability and sustainable growth will helpto make these ethics transparent and explicit. Itwill celebrate them. Sustainability taps this com-mon spiritual and psychological space, and createsa common ethical language around which theworld’s innovators, investors, regulators and con-sumers can rally. And in this common space, wecan find a new global prosperity.

Tim Nixon is Managing Editor of Sustainability atThomson Reuters.

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Kassahun Y. Kebede

Co-opetition: A way forward for solar actors indeveloping countries

uring my PhD study on the diffusion ofsolar energy technology and associatedtechnological innovation system building

for enhanced diffusion in developing countries, Icame to learn that there has been less engagementwith the business strategies we often see appliedin other business areas.

Random list of factors were being mentioned asbarriers to the successful diffusion of solar PV sys-tems to electrify the rural communities throughoutthe globe. Also, NGOs and NPOs have been themain actors and few market oriented approacheswere introduced to the solar market in developingcountries like that of Ethiopia.

There have been many promising initiativesthat lived for a while and proved unsung success.Unfortunately, lessons learnt locally from suchefforts and upscaling of those efforts have been arare phenomenon. The local government, suppo-sed to scale up effort, may not even know whathas been going on around; in some worse cases,pertinent offices/officers were found to be igno-rant of what is going on in their own field. As aresult, local recognitions were reported after in-ternational media and organizations acknowledgedthe efforts.

A seemingly funny encounter I had during afield research in Ethiopia was that three actors(Government, NGO, and private sector) werefighting for supplying solar home systems for avillage in three different ways: subsidy, donation,and market sale; it may look healthy to see such

options available for the villagers but it would beunhealthy to see this redundant effort while theplay-ground is so wide, having dozens of un-electrified villages in the vicinity.

Moreover, all of these 'competing' actors havegot no closely available center for maintenance orafter sales service delivery. Many of the solar ho-me systems in the village were not functioning formere maintenance problems.

In order to have successful adoption of solar PVsystems in developing countries, there is a need forco-opetition among the solar actors! Co-opetitionhas been a prevalent business concept that em-phasizes the simultaneous competition and coope-ration between firms (actors). It was first intro-duced in the 1980s by Raymond Noorda (Luo,2007), and the concept became popular after thestudy presented by Brandenburger and Nalebuff(1996).

Individual firms may cooperate for differentreasons; it could be: to learn more about theirrivals' competencies; to solve common problemsand; to influence rules and regulations (Tether,2002).

Solar actors can co-operate for having a com-mon service center very close to the rural commu-nity (for maintenance and after sales service provi-sion); they can co-operate for influencing rules andregulations related to solar market, and lobbytogether for creating conducive environment forfaster adoption of the technology. Then, they cancompete in this untapped market potential

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through delivery mechanisms, quality and price oftheir products, etc.

The idea of co-opetition among solar actorsseems well practiced in very few developing count-ries such as in Bangladesh where NGOs, NPOs, andthe private sector work closely with Governmentorganizations in creating local Solar PV industryand enhancing faster adoption of the technologyamong the community, and at the same time com-peting for the solar market share.

Reference:Brandenburger, A. M., & Nalebuff, B. J. (1996),

Co-opetition, New York: Doubleday Currency.

Luo, Y. (2007), ‘A coopetition perspective ofglobal competition’, Journal of World Business,42(2): 129−144.

Tether, B. (2002), ‘Who co-operates for innova-tion, and why: An empirical analysis’, ResearchPolicy, 31(6): 947–967.

Kassahun Y. Kebede (PhD) is a researcher and con-sultant based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is alsoan Assistant Professor at Addis Ababa Institute ofTechnology, Addis Ababa University.

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Shweta Maheshwari and Jeanne Finestone

Lighting the way to women’s economic empowerment

he women of East and Northeast India nolonger need to fear the dark. ONergy, anaward-winning social enterprise, has develo-

ped a number of innovative energy solutions thatnot only address the dearth of electricity in theregion – improving safety in their communities –but also light a path toward economic empower-ment for women.

ONergy’s innovative solar power solutions areproviding energy to meet India’s development andsocial challenges. To promote solar as a clean andreliable source of energy, the company is trainingwomen entrepreneurs in its products’ technology,usability and special features. By partnering withlocal grassroots organizations – microfinance insti-tutions, NGOs and women’s self-help groups – thecompany is imparting product know-how whilealso enabling these women to serve as companydistributors – providing both income and em-powerment.

“Lack of energy is an important bottleneck todevelopment. And women are the central force inthe development of their families and the shapingof the next generation,” says Piyush Jaju, CEO ofONergy. “ONergy’s products provide environmen-tal benefits by reducing the use of diesel genera-tors, kerosene and other harmful energy sources –and empower women to help shape a brightertomorrow.”

Sandhya is a living example of how ONergy’sentrepreneurship programmes are creating changeamong India’s poor people. Prior to working withONergy, Sandhya, 24, and her husband could

barely make ends meet financially. With the orga-nisation’s support, she acquired a small loan froma local microfinance institution and began conduc-ting demonstrations on the advantages of solarpower, the uses of ONergy’s products and the easeof buying them through microfinance institutions.She is now able to light up her home, which allowsher child to study more easily. She occasionallyaccompanies her husband to the fields, whichutilize an ONergy solar-powered irrigation pump.By being the first to electrify her house, and bytaking the initiative to spread awareness of thebenefits and opportunities of solar power, Sandhyahas become an inspiration for many women in hervillage.

But ONergy’s solar products are not just hel-ping the women who market them. Tumpa, anembroiderer, was also struggling to make endsmeet. Her village in Sunderbans – the largestMangrove forest area in India – is also home tomany wild animals, which made night time visitsparticularly dangerous. And without light in herhome, she had to stop working at sunset. Tumpaand her husband invested in a solar light that notonly illuminates their home, but is also light andpowerful enough to carry outside, making it easyfor her to use in her travels. Since then, Tumpa hasdoubled her output, her children can study in thenight and she travels from one place to anotherwithout fear of being attacked by animals.

To date, ONergy has provided training to morethan 2,000 women and aims to reach 50,000 inEast & North East within the next three years. The

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company has developed products for solar irrigati-on and micro cold storage (for agriculture), low-cost solar computer systems (for education) andsolar microgrids (for livelihoods). It has built anecosystem that connects technology, finance andgrassroots organizations to manage the needs,aspirations and resources for undeserved custo-mers at the base of the economic pyramid. Todate, ONergy has impacted 350,000 lives, andworking with its microfinance and NGO partners,the company plans to brighten the lives of 1 millionwomen in the next two years.

In 2015, ONergy joined the Business Call to Ac-tion (BCtA), a global initiative supported by theUnited Nations Development Programme andother international organizations that encourages

companies to fight poverty through innovativebusiness models, with a pledge to scale up its suc-cessful product distribution network in order tobring reliable solar-powered products to India’spoorest and underserved regions. The expansion isexpected to provide solar energy to 1 million peop-le by 2017 and reduce CO2 emissions by as muchas 100,000 tons.

Shweta Maheshwari works for ONergy (Kolkata),Jeanne Finestone for UNDP.

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Justin Guay

Who will serve the world’s missing middle?

iesel generators are the world’s mostubiquitous distributed energy technology -they’re also ripe for displacement.

Around the world a growing number of distri-buted clean energy technology start-ups haveaimed their sights at ending energy poverty byserving a vast untapped market - the 1.2 billion un-electrified people around the world. Their effortsbegin by getting people on the first rungs of theenergy ladder as quickly and cheaply as possiblewith pico solar devices that power basic entry levelservices like lighting and mobile phone charging.Over time they will, in theory, move these popula-tions up the ladder by providing them with everexpanding levels of service. Whether ultimatelyconnected to stand alone home systems with sto-rage, mini-grids or even grid extensions (if or whenthey arrive) there is only one direction to head -up.

Up the ladder they goIn many ways we see concrete examples of the

ladder at work. Several of the beyond the grid (alsoknown as off-grid) industry’s leading companiesbegan by meeting their customers where theywere - wasting relatively enormous sums of moneyon heavily polluting and inefficient lighting powe-red by kerosene. They displaced this expensive fuelby serving their customers with a combination ofthe world’s most sophisticated clean energy tech-nologies - solar PV, LED lighting, and Li-Ion Batte-ries. We now regularly see and hear of companiesthat started at low rungs of the ladder expanding

their product lines to help them shift from sellingthings their customers need (lights, mobile phonecharging) to things they want (TVs).

At the other end of the ladder, many nationshave made tremendous progress connecting popu-lations to the centralized grid - the very top of theladder. Perhaps the best example is China whichhas connected 1.3 billion people to a centralizedgrid thanks to its economic transformation. Thebeauty of a centralized grid is that once connectedyou can power whatever you want from day one -you get the kitchen sink. However, for a variety ofreasons including the cost of serving low populati-on densities in rural areas and poor economic andpolitical governance the progress of expanding thecentralized grid has been uneven for many of theworld’s poorest countries. Worse in sub SaharanAfrica population growth threatens to stall or evenreverse the progress.

Chutes and Ladders?But while both camps - grid extenders, and tho-

se operating beyond the grid - relentlessly focus onmoving populations up the ladder a quiet crisis hasconspired to thwart their efforts. That’s becausewe have all assumed that once a population gets agrid connection the job is done. 24/7 power for anendlessly growing array of devices and demands.The reality is however much starker.

Some have estimated a population roughly thesame size as the purely off-grid world suffer fromchronic and prolonged blackouts. These are the‘under-electrified.’ The regular blackouts they

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experience don’t just affect household energydemand, they reverberate throughout the econo-my as industry and manufacturing can be shutdown for hours at a time - an enormous cost forpoor economies where people get by on dollars aday.

The Missing MiddleThat creates a perverse situation where poorly

functioning grids send people the opposite direc-tion we are all headed - down the energy ladder.When they do, they force people and enterprisesto rely on the world’s most ubiquitous distributedenergy technology - the diesel generator (dieselgen set). Where these two flows of people meet isa vast poorly served market ripe for intervention.It’s the missing middle.

IRENA estimates the market at 400 GW of in-stalled diesel gen sets globally. A market that Na-vigant sees growing from 62 GW of annual sales to103 GW in the next ten years coupled with $538billion in revenue all driven by poorly functioninggrids in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Withsome countries like Nigeria seeing capacity factorsas high as 60% the diesel bill for backing up poorlyperforming grids is big. By comparison, the beyondthe grid market, is dominated by roughly $27 billi-on in annual kerosene consumption. Despite theirdifferences the same economic principle holds -people are paying through the nose for expensive,polluting fuels that dirt cheap solar can displace.

Top down or Bottom up?Eliminating energy poverty is a noble goal but

there are a number of important reasons to tacklethe missing middle.The first and most important isthat these are also energy poor citizens whoseeconomic productivity as well as potential outco-

me is stifled by a lack of power. At the same timethanks to its sheer size the market is bigger(though not more carbon intensive) than the UScoal fleet which makes it a potential opportunityfor driving carbon reductions. Last, and most im-portant from a business standpoint, this markethas one big upside - the population has had a tasteof electricity and now values it so much they’rewilling, and able, to pay large amounts to keep thelights on.

That’s why a race to serve the middle may becoming. On one side beyond the grid solar firmswho began at the base of the ladder are moving upas the populations they serve expand their demandfor energy services. On the other, large energyfirms operating in utility scale markets are develo-ping product offerings to move down the ladder.Firms like Gamesa for example now offer a hybridsolar, diesel, and storage product aimed at dieseldisplacement.

The strategic question now is who best under-stands the missing middle? It’s a population thathas largely been ignored because it’s assumed thatcentralized grids function. But where they don’t anenormous population has emerged that has provendistributed generation can flourish in emergingmarkets. For those operating in the shadow ofdysfunctional grids the direction of travel is clear -it’s time to move from kerosene killers to dieseldisplacers. Because the pot of gold may not be atthe end of the energy ladder - it’s in the middle.

Justin Guay is the Program Officer covering climateat the Packard Foundation.

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Kizito Makoye

Solar panels power business surge - not just lights -in Tanzania

amwel Nyakalege's life has recently becomemore of a grind - and that's a good thing.

The 33-year-old miller from Bwisya vil-lage, on Lake Victoria's Ukara Island, is one of thefirst to benefit from a project to bring solar powerto residents and business-owners.

The entrepreneur, married with four children,has worked grinding millet, maize, rice and beanssince 2007, but the high cost of fuel for his dieselgenerator made it hard to turn a profit.

"I used to buy a litre of diesel for up to 3,000Tanzanian shillings (about $1.40) and I needed atleast 50 litres every week to run the generator. Mybusiness could hardly grow," Nyakalege told theThomson Reuters Foundation.

But with the arrival of the first-ever solar-powered mini-grid at Bwisya, launched byJUMEME, a rural power supply company withgovernment backing, Nyakalege has enough ener-gy to run his power-hungry business - and no lon-ger needs costly and polluting generators.

Cheaper power, in fact, means that he can ex-pand his company.

"Solar power is a blessing to us as we can nowserve more customers quicker and efficiently," hesaid. "I don't spend a penny to buy diesel. My mo-tors work very efficiently using solar electricity."

Solar steps upAround the world, as the costs of solar energy

plunge, it is increasingly being used to power in-

dustry and businesses, a huge step forward fromsimply supplying lighting and basic electrical powerin places like Tanzania, experts say.

Nyakalege, for instance, now uses solar powerto operate his three milling machines simultaneou-sly. He has employed three people to help him andhas seen his customer base rise to 600 a day.

His income also has grown as a result, from lessthan 100,000 shillings a day on average (about$45) to 400,000 shillings now.

He is now contemplating getting a bank loan toexpand his business, he said.

Processing grain in Ukara, until recently, was acostly activity because the island was not connec-ted to the electrical grid. Those who couldn't afforddiesel-powered grain-milling services often had togrind their staple foods of cassava and maize byhand, a time-consuming activity.

The solar system at Bwisya is part of a projectto provide reliable and affordable electricity to thenearly 2,000 households and more than 200 busi-nesses on Ukara, in order to boost opportunities toearn an income.

It is the first of 30 such systems JUMEME plansto install over the next two years. They are expec-ted to supply power to around 100,000 people,company officials said.

The company has even bigger plans for the lon-ger-term, they said.

"Our goal is to set up 300 systems and serve upto 1 million people in rural areas across Tanzania

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by 2022, making JUMEME the largest mini-gridoperator in the country," said Thadeus Mkamwa,one of the company's directors.

The project, jointly funded by the EuropeanUnion and private investors with political supportfrom the Tanzanian government , has a totalbudget of 38.4 billion shillings ($17.6 million),Mkwama said.

Pre-paid solar powerIn Bwisya, the largest village on Ukara, 250

customers are due to be connected to a hybridpower station consisting of a 60-kilowatt (KW)solar photovoltaic system and a 240 KW-hour bat-tery bank. A diesel generator provides back-up.

The system will be extended in the second halfof this year to connect the other villages on theisland, Mkamwa said.

The installation charges for individual homesand business are repaid by customers in instal-ments. Consumers pre-pay for their power, withcosts per unit depending on the amount of electri-cal equipment they use.

JUMEME is working with GVEP International, anongovernmental organisation, to train people onUkara to use electricity for business purposes, suchas producing wood and metal crafts.

Hamisi Bujeje, 30, has dreamed of owning a bigcarpentry workshop since he helped his fatherbuild canoes and dhows as a boy. But he said hehas so far struggled to turn a profit in the business

he started in 2011. "My business has not beendoing very well because of lack of power. I wasincurring huge operational costs. I used to travel 29km (18 miles) to the nearest island of Nansio toaccess electricity and have some items fixed," Buje-je said.

But along with cheaper solar power, he has ac-cess to new carpentry equipment, businesscoaching from GVEP and a loan scheme offered toentrepreneurs by JUMEME.

"I am looking forward to expanding my busi-ness and attaining my dream in the furniture in-dustry," Bujeje said.

Domestic customers of the new solar powersupply are also pleased with the change.

"The system is very good and so helpful," saidKulwa Mwenguo, a resident of Ukara "I have ac-cess to lights, charge my phone and I listen to theradio."

Mwenguo says he pays 3,800 shillings ($1.70)each week for the service, less than two-thirds ofwhat he use to spend on kerosene.

Kizito Makoye is a freelance correspondent for theThomson Reuters Foundation, based in Dar esSalaam, Tanzania.

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Zadie Oleksiw

Solar business models for growth: The private sectorneeds to lead on India’s rural electrification deficit

he Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is home tothe country’s largest population of un-electrified villages. According to data collec-

ted by the Council on Clean Energy, Environment,and Water (CEEW), more than seventy percent ofUttar Pradesh’s two hundred and twenty millionresidents still depend on kerosene lamps and die-sel generators for lighting and electricity.

Much of the problem is rooted in the lack ofcommercial viability: in the absence of subsidies,it’s difficult for both utility distribution companiesand for small-scale energy providers to earn re-turns in a market where the primary consumers fallnear or below the poverty line.

CEEW also found that almost half of house-holds without electricity were connected to thegrid, showing that lack of infrastructure is only onelayer of inadequate power delivery. Coupled withunclear regulatory policies and the high cost ofcapital, small-scale energy developers face a highbarrier to entry in India’s off-grid power market.

In February, Uttar Pradesh’s state governmentlaunched the first minigrid policy in India aimed ateasing some of those barriers for private develo-pers, and the state’s regulatory commission rati-fied it earlier this month with specific guidelines onimplementation and compliance from the utility.

In addition to creating a thirty percent projectsubsidy, the policy removes restrictive servicerules, such as arcane licensing requirements tooperate as an energy provider, and outlines ways

that minigrids can coexist with the central grid if itreaches a village where a minigrid is already opera-ting. For the first time in India, the policy alsorecognizes private minigrid developers as legitima-te energy providers.

Mini, micro, and pico: size matters in the off-grid solar market

Omnigrid Power (OMC) is one of those solardevelopers, and they are pioneering the anchorload model, arguably one of the most promisingmechanisms to deliver electricity to the masses.

The idea is that the minigrid powers an anchortenant - a commercial entity such as mobile to-wers, ATMs, and gas stations - that requires reliab-le, around-the-clock power. Founded by formertelecom executives, OMC currently focuses onpowering mobile towers by building 35-50 kWsized solar projects - at least thirty percent morethan mobile towers typically need.

With the remaining power, OMC servicessurrounding households and small businesses as asecondary market, usually offering two light bulbsand a mobile charging outlet for as little as onehundred rupees a month.

The cross-subsidy from anchor loads makes itfeasible for OMC to absorb the costs associatedwith small household revenue, and soft costsassociated with customer acquisition and service.These can be the biggest barriers for many smallpower companies that deal directly with house-

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holds and rely heavily on local trust and relations-hips.

According to OMC, the market potential ishuge: they estimate that there are about tenthousand mobile towers that have anchor loadpotential in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

OMC minigrids are large by off-grid solar stan-dards, and incur significantly higher project coststhan their smaller counterparts.

On the other end of the size spectrum, compa-nies like Mera Gao Power specialize in solarmicrogrids, with modular projects as small as asingle solar panel and a battery pack. Like OMC,Mera Gao Power installations also provide custo-mers with two light bulbs and a mobile chargingoutlet.

Unlike OMC, households and small shops areMera Gao Power’s primary customer base. Accord-ing to co-founder Brian Shaad, the company hasover twenty-two thousand customers, which theylargely attribute to the relationships they havenurtured at the village level.

The company’s core business is in “hamlets” -remote areas with fewer than one hundred house-holds and no commitment from the governmentthat central grid power will ever arrive. Hamletsare also generally poorer than neighboring villages.According to Mera Gao Power’s market research,incomes are seasonal and can be as little as fortydollars a month.

Mera Gao Power’s advantage is that small sys-tems can be installed in under a day, and that pro-ject costs are relatively cheap - nine hundred dol-lars - and can be recouped in as little as two years.

From micro to macro: reaching India’s 300 mil-lion off-grid customers

OMC and Mera Gao Power share one principle:they both need to reach meaningful economies ofscale to earn returns for investors and be profitab-le.

That bottom line, though, is probably the ticketto widespread electrification in rural India. Unlike

government or NGO-sponsored projects, bothcompanies are obligated to generate returns forinvestors. Despite the best efforts of governmentand other development driven initiatives, ruralelectrification projects that don’t prioritize privateownership have yet to demonstrate long-termviability, and graveyards of neglected, damaged, orabandoned projects litter rural India.

That’s not to say that the roles of the govern-ment and NGOs in rural electrification aren’t im-portant. Rather, different sets of stakeholders playcritical roles introducing financing, in advocacy andinfluencing lawmakers, and providing training andmarket research.

And the market potential is huge; nearly aquarter of India’s rural population lacks access toelectricity, and The Climate Group estimates themarket size for distributed renewable energy pro-viders in that space will be at least $150 million by2018.

Still, scaling across rural Uttar Pradesh and In-dia is one of the most elusive challenges for anydeveloper.

For OMC, the challenges are regulatoryuncertainties and the high cost of capital. The newstate minigrid policy won’t be a panacea, but OMCis optimistic that by sanctioning the role of theprivate sector, the policy will draw investors bysignaling the long-term viability of projects.

While companies like OMC welcome the policy,there are around forty enterprises in India offeringoff-grid solar services - most of which won’t be-nefit from the policy due to the relatively small sizeof projects. For them, private sector innovation willcontinue to be the real catalyst to scaling acrossrural India.

Zadie Oleksiw is Fulbright researcher and cleanenergy advocate.

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Solarplaza

The growing influence of telecom companies in off-gridmarkets

he growing use of mobile money solutionsfor electricity tariff payment is redefining thesolar off-grid market in regions such as Afri-

ca. Here, mobile money services have seen a tre-mendous growth over the last decade.

As the adoption of solar off-grid power soluti-ons grow within energy markets across the world,operators are increasingly finding mobile moneysolutions a viable enabler of consumer tariff pay-ments. Companies promoting home-based solarsolutions and appliances have found an equallytremendous capacity to scale up using the nowpopular Pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) model.

In this model, off-grid power subscribers onlyget access to electricity supplied by the home-based or centralized solar systems when paymentis made, which happens through phone-basedmobile money solutions that use customer’s creditor dedicated vouchers via USSD (UnstructuredSupplementary Service Data) codes. In all usecases, the power supply is blocked automaticallywhen the fees are not provided.

Efficient tariff collection systems that wouldnormally pose a hurdle for the fast-paced adoptionof home-based solar solutions (especially in ruraland poorly banked communities) have now beenenabled by telecom companies using the PAYGOmodel.

They take advantage of the upward penetrationof mobile phones in these markets and its ability toreach remote areas where alternative financial

institutions and offline payment solutions canbarely function.

By mid-2013 there were 502 million active SIMconnections in the African region (equivalent to apenetration rate of 61%). This figure has grown by23% per annum over the last five years, accordingto GSMA, which represents the interests of mobileoperators worldwide. By 2020, mobile penetrationwill have risen from 80 to 93%.In contrast, univer-sal access to electricity in Africa is estimated totake until 2080 to be accomplished.

Nairobi, Kenya-based M-KOPA Solar is an off-grid company founded in 2012 which uses the nowpopular PAYGO model to provide solar appliancesto Base of the Pyramid (BoP) populations. Betweentheir inception in 2012 and 2016, they haveconnected over 300,000 homes in East Africa andhave made about $40 million in revenue withinthat same period. M-KOPA now has a presence inthree African countries (Kenya, Tanzania andUganda) as well as a franchisee in Ghana. Its storyand that of other operators utilizing PAYGO modelhas led to many emerging questions about the rolethat traditional tariff collectors, such as banks, canstill play in the market.

Could mobile money be the future of tariff col-lection for off-grid solar?

Areef Kassam, head of Mobile for Development(M4D) Utilities at GSMA says “Financial institutionshave been involved in tariff collection for off-grid

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companies in varying degrees in different marketsand with varying success. However, mobile opera-tors have a dramatic advantage in providing thisservice considering there are 37 global marketsthat have ten times the number of registered mo-bile money agents compared to bank branches andother 19 markets that have more mobile moneyaccounts than bank accounts.”According to GSMA,“Sub-Saharan Africa continues to account for themajority of live mobile money services (52%),” withWest Africa seeing dramatic growth over 2015,with “year-on-year growth at 60.1%, twice thegrowth rate of any other region,” GSMA says.

Do these advantages make telecom companiesindispensable to the growth of off-grid solar soluti-ons? Could they become an alternative to banksand other financial institutions?

Koen Peters, director of Global Off-Grid LightingAssociation (GOGLA), explains that “Telecom com-panies and the mobile money solution which theyoffer are not absolutely critical to the growth ofoff-grid companies but they clearly have the capa-city to be a game changer.” According to Mr. Pe-ters, “The strategic usefulness of telecom solutionsin this sector will be optimized if they team up withbanks and other counterpart financial institutionsrather than compete, since each payment solutionbrings unique capabilities that are not readilyavailable in the other. Therefore, off-grid compa-nies, banks and telecoms could benefit more fromcollaboration rather than rivalry in the long term.”

For example, PAYGO is essentially a rent-to-own model, which means that the solar appliancesremain in the books of an off-grid company formany years in the form of loans. Financial instituti-ons are in a better position to structure, bear andmanage these forms of credit thereby enablingenergy providers to focus on their core mandate ofdistributed energy provision. This becomes even

more critical when considering that off-grid com-panies are mostly funded using hard currency (USDor Euro) while loans and customer payments aredenominated in local currency, an arrangementthat predisposes off-grid firms to the risks of localcurrency devaluation if not properly structuredthrough local banks.

Mr. Peters adds “Despite the growing numberof deals between telecoms and off-grid companies,the telecom companies may not have shown thelevel of interest and participation expected withinoff-grid markets, especially in relevant conferencesand other events.”

It is however anticipated that telecom compa-nies will become more aggressive in its outlooktowards off-grid solar payment markets, since theproven ease of deployment and adoption for bothsellers and buyers of solar solutions respectively isexpected to continue to drive further collaborati-on.

According to Mr. Kassam of GSMA “Increasinglymobile operators see pay-as-you-go solar offeringsas a key avenue to growing mobile money andcustomer loyalty, as customers become more acti-ve mobile money users through regular payments.This implies that other uses of mobile money couldbe intermittent, but regular payments (dail-y/weekly/monthly) required for power access inoff-grid appliances could dramatically increase therate of mobile money use.

SolarPlaza is a global solar energy business portalwith worldwide news and information on photo-voltaic products and services.

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Kartikeya Singh

To scale or not to scale? Lessons from India’s off-gridsolar technology sector

usinesses working at the intersection ofdevelopment and increasing shared valueconstantly find themselves navigating the

question of whether or not they are having animpact. Impact, in this scenario, is defined by scalein number of customers (or beneficiaries) reached.Though the language may be fuzzy and the impacthard to measure, the question for any businessworking with those at the bottom of (or near thebottom of) the pyramid remains: to scale or not toscale? My own research on business innovationsand the diffusion of off-grid solar technologies inIndia can help shed some light on the challengesand opportunities of scaling specific to that sector.

India is a country of 1.2 billion people, with o-ver 400 million who lack access to reliable electrici-

ty. Government plans to provide power for all by2019 include using distributed (off-grid) energysources such as solar home lighting systems, solarlanterns and solar powered micro-grids. Buoyed bythe UN’s Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) targetto provide universal electricity access by 2030,entrepreneurs with novel business ideas haveburst on to the scene. These entrepreneurs aretaking advantage of both public and private capitalto set up enterprises with a variety of innovationsto capture this large market of consumers. In orderto differentiate these enterprises from oneanother, we must create a typology based on theirbusiness models (see table below).

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But on scaling, my research shows that thosebusinesses that achieve high unit sales in providingsolar energy services to the poor are also doing soat the expense of providing greater technologychoice options to their customers. When it comesto solar technologies, not all of them are the same.Whether or not you provide simply lighting orcharging for mobile phones or energy for a higherproductivity generating activity makes a difference.And ultimately the poor must be able to get up theenergy ladder as their incomes and needs rise. Forthat there must be greater technology choice opti-ons.

In addition, the research reveals that the moreproducts a firm provides, the more likely it is toalso provide financing for its customers. While it isquestionable whether end-user financing or subsi-dies are still needed to acquire solar energy ser-vices for everyone, certainly those at the very bot-tom of the pyramid need the help of financial in-novations employed by businesses that make ac-cess to solar energy services easy and reliable.Companies employing pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solarhome lighting systems and micro-grid operators

that allow for mobile payments are a good examp-le. Investors and policymakers must consider thepossible trade-offs between supporting firms likelyto achieve scale and those likely to provide finan-cing.

Finally, the value of scaling should be questio-ned in an industry that should be trying to movefrom providing technologies to quality energyservices. Finding a balance between simplyachieving scale in numbers and assuring that quali-ty, defined by sufficient energy and an ecosystemof support structures for the technology postdeployment, is essential if one is to genuinely pro-vide access to energy for improving the livelihoodsof those who need it most.

Kartikeya Singh is an IDRC Fellow at Center forGlobal Development.

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Jon Sarpong

Challenges and opportunities for foreign solar energyfirms in Africa

any companies have identified Africa asa growth market but haven’t identifiedthe uniqueness of the region. A very big

issue is that most companies really don’t know theAfrican market. Although it may seem like onehomogeneous region of the globe, Africa is in fact adiverse collection of countries, cultures, sub-cultures and histories.

Understanding the specifics of your target mar-ket in terms of societal norms, language and religi-ous practices is a crucial element required for bu-siness success. Many companies believe that theysimply ‘know better’ than the indigenous populati-on, and attempt to impose foreign thinking on thelocal populace.

“In Africa, all that matters is what you do onthe ground”

Another huge issue is that many foreign com-panies have very weak in-country ground teams. InAfrica, all that matters is what you do on theground.

Solar companies that believe they can workremotely from their headquarters abroad, whilemaking progress on a project in Africa, will soonfind they have no project at all.

Another mistake is to place your project in thehands of incompetent and so called ‘connected’individuals; I’ve seen companies cheated out ofhundreds of thousands of dollars based on thepromises of ‘connected’ locals.

In my opinion, an expert team with experience,as well as strong industry and political connections,is an absolute must for any successful project inAfrica.

There are four words that strike fear in my he-art concerning any project in Africa: “We’ve metthe President.” Politicising your solar business orproject can have several adverse effects resultingfrom the highly charged nature of politics in manyAfrican countries.

The photo opp might seem great, but businessmay be hindered and suffer in the long run.

However, a big part of success for foreign PVcompanies in Africa comes out of the foundationalwork they undertake before actually initiatingprojects.

Taking the opportunity to have managementand leadership exposed to cultural training is cru-cial because it exposes them to the normal busi-ness practices and cultural mores in specific Africaregions.

It’s a big mistake to assume that what’s accep-table in an American or European context will havesimilar appreciation in an African context.

“Local developers must be seen as partners,and not just a necessary evil”

Additionally, since most of Africa’s PV industryis in a state of flux, companies must be flexible.The dynamic nature of life in Africa requires strongcreative thinking and the boldness to adapt to

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circumstances. Companies unwilling to embracechange soon find themselves a victim of this evolu-tion.

As well, foreign companies should undertakedue diligence on the country, project specifics andpotential local partners. If possible, use a thirdparty that knows the market to identify the‘talkers’ (those that promise but don’t deliver),‘walkers’ (those who leave the project when chal-lenges arise), and ‘blockers’ (those that will actual-ly become a hindrance to the execution of yourproject).

Once connected with the right local support, PVcompanies interested in the African market, musthave the mindset of mutual respect, and mutuallybeneficial relationships. Local developers must beseen as partners in the enterprise, and not just anecessary evil.

It is crucial for PV developers to fully under-stand the forecasted energy generation mix fortheir targeted African markets. A country may bewelcoming PV developers today, but can’t be surewhat policy will look like in three years’ time. They

must be aware of any hydroelectric resources dueto come online and how this might affect tariffs.

“A patient man will eat ripe fruit”Solar firms must have a long-term view of Afri-

can markets. The transformation of many Africannations may seem rapid; however, these nationsare still built on ancient customs and traditionsthat infuse business practices.

A long-term vision will allow companies to na-vigate the ups and downs that will definitely arise.As the African proverb relates, ‘a patient man willeat ripe fruit’ – and this sentiment seems approp-riate for those PV companies that aim to establishsolar technology as an impactful energy source inAfrica.

Jon Sarpong is President of PV developer and con-sultancy Avior Global.

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Kizito Makoye

Women solar entrepreneurs drive East Africanbusiness surge

ith solar power and access to loans, "weare more productive than ever before.On average we can get $25 a day, even

more," says one woman.As the darkness falls on the plains around Bu-

nambiyu, a remote village in Tanzania's northernShinyanga region, Elizabeth Julius switches on hersolar lantern to finish sewing clothes for hercustomers.

Not long ago, nightfall would have forced her toclose her tailoring shop, or use a smoky kerosenelamp. But with the solar-powered lamp, Julius cannow sew for as long as she wants.

"Solar energy has entirely changed my life. I useit at work and at home, yet it doesn't cost me any-thing," said the 29-year-old entrepreneur andmother of two.

"I often wake up at night to work because Ineed the money to support my family," she said.

Julius and her husband Zablon used to earnbarely enough to meet the needs of their growingfamily, she said.

But three years ago, Julius secured a $500 bankloan to buy solar lanterns, which she sold tocustomers.

With the additional income earned, she thensought another larger loan to expand her tailoringbusiness to include a barber shop, mobile phonecharging facility and a consumer goods shop, allpowered with solar energy.

Now "we are more productive than ever befo-

re. On average we can get 50,000 shillings ($25) aday, even more," she said.

Training for womenJulius' success is due in part to training from

Energy 4 Impact, a London-based non-profit groupthat works in East and West Africa to improveaccess to energy. One focus of the group's work islifting rural women from poverty through clean-energy entrepreneurship.

The group's new WIRE (Women Integration intoRenewable Energy) value chain project aims toassist 400 women solar entrepreneurs by 2020with training and finance, and help some of themprovide 360,000 people in Kenya and Tanzaniawith access to clean cooking and solar lightingproducts.

The programme is part of the Partnership onWomen's Entrepreneurship in Renewables(wPOWER) launched by the U.S. State Departmentin 2013.

Besides helping women grow their businesses,the effort aims to reduce climate changing emissi-ons and deforestation for firewood, said JerryAbuga, an Energy 4 Impact spokesman.

Godfrey Sanga, a programme manager forEnergy 4 Impact, said helping women create cleanenergy businesses makes sense, as women aregood at creating networks in rural areas and canspread the use of clean power.

Since 2013, 1,200 micro-businesses and 200

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small and medium ones in East Africa have recei-ved help, and seen their sales rise an average of 32percent a year, project officials said.

Julius said business management and technolo-gy training through the project was key to helpingher scale up her business and her income.

"I have nothing to complain about. Virtuallyeverybody in the village is happy with what we aredoing and our services are exclusively solar," shesaid.

In Tanzania where only 21 percent of the popu-lation has access to grid electricity, according toTanzania Ministry of Energy and Minerals, helpingwomen become energy entrepreneurs is a usefulway to improve lives of millions of people in ruralareas, said Sanga, of Energy 4 Impact.

Almost 69 percent of the population in Kenyaand 95 percent in Tanzania depend on firewood,charcoal and dung for cooking, the company said.

Smoky fires and kerosene lamps are a majorsource of household air pollution causing 14,300deaths annually in Kenya and 18,900 in Tanzania,the company said.

Reliable equipment?While the use of solar energy has been rapidly

growing in Tanzania, getting quality equipmentfrom reliable suppliers can still be a problem,Sanga said.

Growing interest in solar energy has attractedunscrupulous sellers, whose poor-quality

equipment can then hurt confidence in switchingto solar, he said.

"Poor quality and substandard or fake productsis one of the main factors that is discouraging pe-ople from using the clean energy technologies, dueto frequent failures and general poor perfor-mance," Sanga said.

The Energy 4 Impact effort helps make surehigh-quality, reliable equipment - and the know-ledge to maintain it - is available, he said.

The effort also aims to bring solar power torural areas of Tanzania where many people stillremain unaware of the technology. To boost inte-rest, the project hopes to assist solar entrepre-neurs in putting on roadshows, forums with wo-men and youth groups, and media campaigns, hesaid.

"By showcasing successful businesses and de-monstrating the benefits using the clean technolo-gies in increasing productivity, incomes and savingcosts, it is expected that many people will be inte-rested in adapting and using them in their lives forthemselves and their families," Sanga said.

Kizito Makoye is a freelance correspondent for theThomson Reuters Foundation, based in Dar esSalaam, Tanzania.

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Abhijeet Bhandari

Fund raising challenges faced by start-ups

he first thing you need to remember is thatevery business is not attractive to a VentureCapitalist (VC) and hence raising capital

becomes more complicated. Now, how do yourealize that your business is not fit for a VC? Well,the easiest is to ask few VCs. The difficult part is tounderstand the inherent challenges of scale in yourbusiness that makes it less attractive to a VC. Thesimplest matrix to measure scalability is to assessincrease in cost of operations (manpower andothers) when servicing 10 clients vs 10,000 clients.If the costs increase proportionately, the companyis NOT scalable. E.g. a typical manufacturing com-pany’s costs will increase as sales increase while ina technology enabled company, the costs will notincrease proportionately.

I am not suggesting that you only build highlyscalable VC oriented business but once you realizethat your business is not for a VC, stop knockingtheir doors. You need to look for alternate plat-forms, Family Offices, customers, etc. as investors.A typical B2B services company would fall into thiscategory where the company can operationallybreakeven after some initial investments. As acorollary, you can also think of starting a companyby getting a few corporate customers to get reve-nues, build relevant product and sustain beforetaking the next leap of growth.

Once you have achieved initial traction, thenext challenge is to identify the “right” investor foryour company. It depends on stage, sector andtype of company. Stage will determine whetheryou will approach an angel investor, a VC or a Pri-vate Equity (PE) fund. The sector and type of com-

pany determines whether you should approach aVC or Family Office or others. We will restrict ourdiscussion to Angel, Family Office and VC only.

Let’s first understand angel investor. The big-gest challenge here is to find angel investors whowould be interested in your company. Unless youhave a strong network, it is extremely difficult toreach these investors, get interest from them andalso ensure that they have liquid money to investat that time. Further, you need to convince at least5-10 angel investors so that you get some sizablemoney from them. If you get only one angel inves-tor he would like to get a lot of stake as his bargai-ning power goes up significantly. You should try toget at least get a few angel investors on your side.The same challenge remain with Family Offices aslimited data about them is available so they aredifficult to reach. There are platforms like grex.inand others who can help you here.

There is a different challenge with institutionalinvestors. There are more than 400 institutionalinvestors registered with SEBI but few are active.On top of it, institutional investors have their ownsector and stage bias which dynamically keepschanging. I recently met a Vice President of onethe largest and most active VC firms in India and hetold me, “We used to do early stage a year ago butwe are not doing it now.” The other challenge is tofind the right person in the VC who can understandyour value proposition better. Although all VCsclaim that they speak to everyone who sends thema mail, the fact remains that if the right persondoesn’t see your mail, it can just go to junk. And bytheir own admission, if a mail comes from a “trus-

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ted” reference, the chances that it will be takenseriously and quickly is quite high. So, if you have areference, use it and if you don’t, find one.

Once you find the right investor, you need tospend time with them. Most entrepreneurs thinkthat they will present to investors once and eitherthey will agree or disagree to invest and the storyis over. How I wish this could be true. Investmentdecisions are taken over a period of time and in-vestors would like to assess tenacity, persuasiven-ess and relationship building with them. If they likeyou over a fairly long period, they will eventuallyinvest in you. A typical fund raising exercise takesupwards of 6 months with an institutional investorand at least 3 months with angel investors. Duringthe same time, you need to manage your businessas well and it can be quite a task.

Being an entrepreneur, you should be preparedto hear “No” from both customers and investors.But there is no excuse for not doing your home-work. If you go to a VC asking for half a millionwhen their minimum ticket size is $ 10 million, notonly are you wasting his time but yours too. So,you must read a lot about the VC firm, the personyou are meeting, ventures have they funded, theircurrent focus, etc. Even if the VC says No, theygenerally help entrepreneurs as they also want tobuild relationship with great entrepreneurs even ifthey don’t invest.

Further, you also need to be prepared to ans-wer some tough questions. Most entrepreneursget stumped when asked, “what will they do if theydon’t get funding now?” Not only should you havea plan to tell your investors but also for yourself.Investors test your perseverance and survival abili-ty in adversities. You need to have alternate plan

(slow growth, internal accruals, family and friends,etc) so that you can sustain before you get your bigbreak. Another typical question asked by VCs is,“How will they get exit?” This is extremely relevantquestion as VCs also want an exit for their invest-ments. You need to research about potential buy-outs, other exit options for VCs.

Don’t assume that getting investors is panaceafor your problems. Instead, I would stronglyrecommend entrepreneurs to focus on theircustomers more than investors. If your customersare happy, you will stay in business and investorswill come sooner or later. You need to keep buil-ding your product and get paying customers. Inves-tors are bound to come if customers are coming.Focus on your customers and keep them happy.

Far too often entrepreneurs feel that if theysolve 5 big problems, they should get funding ea-sily. This is far from truth. You need to start from acore problem and solve it better than others. Youonly plan other additions once your core story isstrong. Investors will also invest once there arecustomers buying your core story. In a limitedresources (money and people both) environment,losing focus can be quite costly – both from custo-mer and investor point of you. So, stay focused.

In the end, the success mantra is start small, failfast, build value and customer loyalty and fundingwill surely follow you.

Abhijeet Bhandari is Co-founder & Head-MarketDevelopment, GREX.

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Aimee Williamson

How industry leaders drive philanthropy forward in devel-oping countries

hilanthropy in developing countries is in-creasingly being seen less in terms of old-fashioned charity and more in terms of soci-

al responsibility and positive business investment.While many successful industry leaders are stillhappy to donate to existing charities, agencies andNGOs are keen to make use of their considerablebusiness acumen, as well as their wealth in orderto drive change and encourage sustainable pro-jects that will have a long-term measurable impacton the country in question.

Investment not handoutsA new breed of entrepreneurial philanthropists

is emerging. They combine humanitarian aid withsound business decisions. They are often far moreeffective than the work of underfunded if well-meaning aid agencies.

The approaches vary, but generally the entre-preneurial philanthropists provide loans, grants orseed capital to promising SMEs in developing eco-nomies, sometimes alongside advice, mentorshipand a range of helpful contacts. The businessesthey invest in are carefully chosen for their poten-tial not only to succeed, but also to transform theirimmediate environment for the better. Local jobcreation within their parent community should beonly the beginning of this positive transformativeimpact.

Extremely selectiveThe US-based Acumen Fund acts as a conduit

through which industry leaders can make financialdonations secure in the knowledge that their mo-ney will be helping local businesses grow ratherthan just providing a financial Band-Aid. The fundtargets high-potential entrepreneurs in developingcountries in the health, housing, energy and watersupply sectors, who are providing products orservices for their country’s poorer citizens- definedas those living on less than four dollars a day. Mul-tinational firms such as Nike provide the funding,while relying on Acumen to identify those smallbusinesses that are in the best position to affectwidespread positive change.

Although they are necessarily extremely selec-tive, Acumen claim their actions have already pro-tected over 5 million people in Tanzania from ma-laria, re-housed 3,500 Pakistani squatters, andprovided irrigation for over 150,000 Indian far-mers.

Giving something backDeveloping countries are also producing suc-

cessful industry leaders who are determined togive something back to their society and help raisethe overall standard of living once they are in aposition to do so. Ehsan Bayat is an Afghan entre-preneur who was educated in the US but returnedto found the Afghan Wireless CommunicationsCompany, providing comprehensive mobile tele-

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communications coverage for his country followingthe fall of the Taliban. He also launched the Arianaradio and TV network and has won several awardsfor his work in the rebuilding of Afghanistan – seeEhsan Bayat’s blog for more details.

Bayat channels his philanthropic activities viathe Bayat Foundation, which focuses on four mainareas of urgent need in Afghanistan: education,maternity health, family services and clean waterprojects. In the latter area, the foundation hasconstructed several new wells around Kabul, Qalae Shahda, Herat City and Parwan. Poor sanitationand lack of access to clean water is considered amajor social issue in Afghanistan, and is a primarycontributor to the country’s health issues.

Other approachesE+Co does invest directly in small businesses

across Africa, Asia and Latin America, sourcingcapital from other investors as well as purely phi-lanthropic donations. It specializes in aiding localenergy suppliers, such as a hydroelectric companyin Honduras or a rural solar power company inMali. Other business leaders take it upon themsel-ves to offer advice to the governments of develo-ping countries on how they can improve their eco-nomies and make their export industries morecompetitive.

Increasingly, industry leaders are looking to gobeyond financial donations towards a more pro-active brand of philanthropy. They want to usetheir knowledge and connections as well as theirwealth to bring about lasting positive change. Whi-le old-style giving still has its place, industry leadersrealize that money is only one aspect of the helpthey can bring.

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Dana Sanchez

Who gets a $1B line of credit? Akon woos Middle East in-vestors for solar lighting Africa business

enegalese-American superstar rapper andbusinessman Akon visited the Middle Eastrecently, trying to get financing for his busi-

ness, Akon Lighting Africa.Akon’s goal is to bring solar lighting to rural Af-

rica. He grew up in a Senegalese town that had noelectricity.

He says he’s brought lighting to 1 million Afri-cans, and many of them got the lights for free aspart of demonstration projects.

Charities don’t really work in Africa, said Akonin an interview with TheGuardian.

“I think (charity) just holds the people downlonger than it should,” he said. “I think the onlyway to build Africa is to build for-profit businessesthat create opportunities and jobs for the peoplelocally.”

Instead, Akon is trying to push a business mo-del that he says addresses some of the past failuresof others — one that can guarantee returns. Highcapital and maintenance costs have been some ofthe key barriers to scaling up solar power in Africa,where about 24 percent of the population lackaccess to electricity, according to a report in Utili-ties.me.

The focus so far for Akon Lighting Africa hasbeen on demonstration projects of solar streetlamps and home solar kits in several African count-ries, Devex reported.

The solar street lamp business, by way ofgovernment contracts and tenders, has been the

company’s main business. Those installations andcontracts are managed through the company Sol-ektra, which was founded by Samba Bathily, andserves as the business arm of Akon Lighting Africa.

Over 200,000 solar household electric systems,100,000 street-lamps and 1,000 solar micro-generators have been proposed and installed intargeted areas, creating direct and indirect jobsmainly for local youth, according to Utilties.me.

Now Akon, along with partners Bathily andThione Niange, is promoting a self-sustaining mo-del that can attract local and international invest-ments.

“Until now, we have used $240 million out ofthe $1 billion that we have at our disposal. We arepresent in 14 countries and want to expand into anadditional 30 countries very soon,” Bathily said.

Attending the World Future Energy Summit2016 in Abu Dhabi, Akon said he wants to install15,000 microgrids in member countries of theEconomic Community of West African States(ECOWAS). These include Benin, Burkina Faso, Coted’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone,Togo and Cape Verde.

To achieve that, he said he needs technicalpartners to help manufacture microgrids cheaplyand financial partners to help de-risk the project.

“The more financial partners we can bring, thebigger the financing and the lower the risk forthose investing in the project,” Akon said. “We are

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currently in discussions with major donors andfinancial institutions from whom we expect com-mitment.”

Fresh ideas and approaches are emerging fromthe Middle East that could help solve Africa’s ener-gy crisis, Akon said. He described the Middle eastas a “hub for pioneering sustainable energythought leadership, innovation and investment.”

The know-how already exists to power Africa,Akon said. What’s still needed is greater technicalinnovation and more creative financial models.

“We believe that these resources are in the Mi-ddle East and that the positive growth in relations-hips between the Middle East and Africa will onlycreate more business opportunities,” he said, ac-cording to Utilities.me.

Akon Lighting has set up a business model withgovernments based on prefinancing. African count-ries cannot always finance a $100 million project inshot, Niang said.

“We divide this into four equal installments of$25 million which most governments can easilyinclude into their annual budgets.”

Solektra worked out a deal with Chinese supp-liers for a $1 billion line of credit, Devex reported.The company uses this as part of a financing pack-age they offer to governments as they bid forcontracts or tenders. The credit line enablesgovernments to pay the cost in installments overseveral years.

Once the company starts operating the newmicrogrid project, it will launch solar kiosks–builton top of microgrids — that will serve as a one-stop-shop to manage payments and maintenancefor energy services. The solar kiosks will also provi-de added services to communities such as ICT andrefrigeration.

“We aim at is to provide these rural communi-ties with an easy way to pre-pay for energy accessthrough a pre-paid card system, which is gainingpopularity across Africa,” says Akon.

How Akon’s business model worksBefore launching a project, the company runs a

pilot phase where solar lighting is presented anddeployed in areas designated by the local authori-ties — most without access to electricity. The costof this pilot phase is directly covered by Solektra.

The pilot phase is followed by a larger scaledeployment, as part of an official tender process.

“At this stage we work with other financialpartners. Today we have secured financing fromsuppliers, export agencies, international and localbanks,” Akon said, according to Utilities.me.

Ecobank is the company’s main banking part-ner.

The company employs local people to installand maintain equipment, positioning itself as asocial enterprise that wants a positive impact onpopulations to drive growth across Africa and giveback to African communities.

Distributing free home solar lighting systemscould be problematic in a market where businessesare trying to sell similar products, Devex reported.

Though some companies have been working onpowering Africa for five or 10 years, Akon LightingAfrica has “probably accomplished more thanevery last one of them combined in less than twoyears,” Akon said.

There’s a string of failed projects where anoutside company came to Africa, installed solarlighting, made money and left.

“Many people come in Africa with many pro-jects and they cash out and there’s no sustainabili-ty,” Niang said. “We learned we need to … makesure what we’re doing has continuity.”

Dana Sanchez is Editor of AFK Insider.

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Josh Klemm

The World Bank’s energy lending is stuck in the past

here’s no question that solar and windpower are experiencing a remarkable rise.The latest energy studies show that invest-

ments and newly installed capacity for wind andsolar are far outstripping other types of energy,including hydropower (which declined for the se-cond year in a row). As leaders grapple with how torespond to climate change, the reduced cost ofwind and solar technologies and the rapid clip ofinstallation should be cause for celebration.

The World Bank’s President Jim Kim has beenvocal about the need for governments to increasesolar and wind generation to help address climatechange, but it turns out that the Bank’s own len-ding is out of step with these trends. A review ofthe last five years of its lending practices showsthat the bulk of the Bank’s renewables lending stillfocuses on large hydro – at a time when the rest ofthe world is going in the opposite direction.

Large hydropower is an outdated, expensivetechnology that suffers cost and time overruns, a

long deployment period and vulnerability to clima-te change. Hydropower reservoirs are also majoremitters of methane, an especially potent green-house gas.

Rather than lead by example, the World Bankhas fallen behind governments and markets, whichhave readily adopted solar and wind as the futureof renewable energy generation. A review of WorldBank lending since 2010 shows 65% of its lendingfor renewable energy supported conventionalhydro over new renewables. (The World Bankconsiders hydropower as renewable.)

In Africa, where energy access rates are the lo-west, the World Bank is even farther behind thecurve – nearly three quarters of World Bank rene-wables lending is going towards hydropower, ver-sus just 10% and 6% for solar and wind respec-tively.

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This despite the findings of the InternationalEnergy Agency (IEA), which estimates that to deli-ver energy access to the 1.3 billion globally wholack it – about half of whom are in Africa – two-thirds will have to come from renewable sourcessuch as solar, wind, biomass and micro-hydro.Large hydro, however, requires a centralized grid.So who’s getting the energy? It’s not those suf-fering from systemic energy poverty.

In the 1970s, building a dam may have lookedlike the best option. But in the intervening de-cades, the cost of solar power has dropped drama-tically. Given that Niger is located on edge of Saha-ra Desert, an area with some of the highest solarpotential in the world, solar is the best option. Inaddition, studies show that solar can be harnessedfor both on- and off-grid-based generation widelyin Africa.

The World Bank’s current lending strategies aredoing impoverished countries a disservice, particu-larly in Africa. They are foisting outdated and ex-pensive hydropower projects on the continentmost vulnerable to climate change-induceddrought and floods. And they’re doing it at a time

when wind and solar have never been easier, fas-ter or cheaper to deploy.Nowhere is this truthmore stark than in Niger, where the World Bank iscurrently supporting a $1 billion “prestige” projectcooked up in 1970s: the Kandadji Dam. Kandadjiwould deliver, at most, 130 MW to the power-starved country during the rainy season, andconsiderably less the rest of the year. Even moretroubling, the project will have a massive socialfootprint – over 60,000 people will have to berelocated to make way for the dam’s reservoir.

The World Bank likes to present itself as a len-der at the cutting edge of new developments. Inreality, it would help if they could at least catch upwith the rest of the world. The future of millionsdepends on it.

Josh Klemm is Policy Director at International Riv-ers.

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News Ghana

Low investment hinders access to energy

he “Decentralized Energy: the Fast-Track toUniversal Energy Access” launched on theside-lines of the African Development Bank

(AfDB) 2016 annual general meetings in Lusaka,the Zambian capital said the opportunity costs ofdelaying access to energy could be remedied ifmultilateral development banks and infrastructuredevelopment agencies incorporated into theirplans the full spectrum of energy options, includingdecentralized renewable energy systems.

The report, produced by Power for All, haspointed out that the need to achieve universalenergy access could be addressed by emphasisingin investing in decentralized renewable energysystems such as solar home systems and mini-gridswhich offer the best path.

“The out-dated emphasis on large-scale infra-structure initiatives is misguided considering 85percent of the energy-poor live in rural areas whe-re decentralize renewable energy can deliver onenergy access goals, and climate, gender, educati-on, health and rural development goals quicker,more cost-effectively and more reliably than thecentralized grid can,” the report said.

It added that despite its clear prioritization as aglobal goal, little progress has been made inachieving universal access to date, noting thatdespite multilateral development banks’ mission ofpoverty alleviation decentralized renewable energyspend still only accounts for a tiny fraction of theirtotal investment in energy access.

As of 2014, the African Development Bank in-vested just one percent of its energy access portfo-

lio to decentralized renewable energy, with theremaining 99 per cent going towards large energyinfrastructure projects, the report added.

The report has since outlined a new frameworkfor achieving universal access before 2030 whichalso outline what multilateral development bankscould and should take to expedite delivery ofelectricity to the 1.1 billion people living withoutaccess to modern energy services.

The report has identified three specific courseof action for multilateral development banks whichinclude utilize energy access opportunity costsassessments in funding solutions, catalysing dedi-cated energy access super funds to accelerate thedecentralized renewable energy sector and mobili-zing national decentralized renewable energy ac-celerators in countries suffering from energypoverty.

“Energy access is central to nearly every majordevelopment challenge the world faces today, andwith decentralized renewables, it doesn’t have towait,” said Power for All’s Kristina Skierka, directorof the global campaign.

“With a reprioritization of funding, shifting ofinternal incentives, and adaptation of successful,fast-track funding schemes for decentralized re-newables, the multilateral development bankscan become the great accelerators of energy ac-cess and leaders in achieving power for all,” headded.

While the global Sustainable Development Goal(SDG) for universal energy access is 2030, theAfDB’s “New Deal on Energy for Africa” is commit-

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ted to achieving universal energy access across thecontinent by 2025.

The AfDB has announced major commitmentson energy access, but its focus appears to remainon large infrastructure.

News Ghana is Ghana’s leading online news publi-cation for business executives in West Africa.

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Jigar Shah

How solar investment can light up India

wo days after assuming office, Indian PrimeMinister Narendra Modi declared his intenti-on to harness solar power to get every home

in India access to at least basic lighting by 2019.This is a bold plan, and just one of many from Modiwhen it comes to climate and clean energy. But forhis plan to attract foreign dollars, he needs to takeit one step further - he needs to detail exactly howthe Indian government is going to make this goalless risky so private capital can invest. Last week’sannouncement of $60 million to back innovativesolar financing is a start, but more needs to bedone.

Bringing reliable electricity to the nearly 300million Indians without it is definitely a dauntingtask, but it’s something that can be done with aplan and a change of approach. The reason? Indiaalready has the technology and the capital. What isneeded is a true government commitment not onlythrough words but also with policy. Anything shortof that will not attract the private capital necessaryto accomplish the Prime Minister’s 2019 goal.

Many have pushed universal grid connectionsthrough a centralized grid as the only means topower the poor. The problem is that the grid isslow and cumbersome to bring to far-flung com-munities, and even where it exists its dysfunctionstill leaves many in the dark. That’s why investingin nimble, cheap, direct clean energy services canbe life changing — a few light bulbs so children canstudy, a TV for some entertainment, a ceiling fan toweather the heat, and of course a place to chargetheir mobile phone at home.

The 21st century solution to meeting basicelectricity needs is putting the most advancedclean energy technologies in the hands of theworld’s poorest communities. That stands in starkcontrast to the failed 19th century solution of ma-king communities wait potentially decades if notmore for heavily polluting and expensive technolo-gies. That is the 2019 standard that Prime MinisterModi hopes to hold India to.

In recent years, technologies such as solar lan-terns, home solar power systems and micro-gridshave transformed thousands of lives in India. Whatpeople don’t realize is these devices provide be-nefits far beyond energy services. They drive finan-cial inclusion by allowing people to open up bankaccounts and serve as credit history to unlock fu-ture opportunities for citizens to borrow money forthings like businesses, homes, and cars—a key goalof the Modi government.

To get India’s millions access to basic electricitywill require over $10 billion of investment over thenext three years. The truth is the money is availab-le in both the public sector - the United StatesAgency for International Development (USAID), theWorld Bank, and the Asian Development Bank haveall committed to funding Indian off-grid rene-wables - as well as from private investors. But tounlock that money we need smart, targeted in-vestments that make this space less risky and getmoney flowing.

Additional early-stage assistance from the Indi-an government preparing projects and govern-ment-backed loan guarantees give comfort to

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foreign capital that they can make money servingthese populations.

What is required now is a clear policy directiveby the Modi government and support from inter-national public financiers. First loss guarantees,more early-stage project grants, and other forms oftargeted financial assistance can finally bringhundreds of millions of people into the 21st centu-ry. Every country that has fully electrified its popu-lation did so with full government financial ba-

cking. It’s time for the Indian government to do thesame. Private capital is waiting.

Jigar Shah is President & Co-Founder of GenerateCapital; also Founder of SunEdison.

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Harald Schützeichel

A tribute to the inventor of Pay-as-you-go: Jürgen Gehr

or several years now, the sale of solar homesystems in developing countries has beenbooming through pay-as-you-go technology

(PAYG). This supports lending by the possibility toturn off the power when the installment is notpaid. More and more providers with differenttechniques are emerging. PAYG technology is par-ticularly popular in East Africa today.

Who invented pay-as-you-go?The PAYG technology was invented in Morocco.

The company Afrisol, founded by the German Jür-gen Gehr, has been striving, since its inception,especially for those households which were notconnected to the electricity network.

Jürgen Gehr soon realized that the high initialcosts hindered the spread of off-grid solar energy.On the other hand, the households had monthlysmaller amounts to pay their current energy needs.His solution: in the year 2000, he developed a solarhome system, whose charger was automaticallyswitched off when the customer did not pay. Inaddition, the charge controller had a data logger,which allowed to monitor and control the userbehavior.

The solar home system from Afrisol, the so-called "SunBox" supplied 4 energy saving lamps(LEDs were not yet operational) and a TV withelectricity.

With his idea, however, Jürgen Gehr encoun-tered a lot of skepticism: the provision of smallloans to rural households by an installation com-pany seemed to be too unusual. Especially for

investors who could have helped the idea to break-through.

The further spreadIn 2004, the Stiftung Solarenergie - Solar Energy

Foundation implemented the SunBox from Afrisolwith integrated PAYG technology for the first timein East Africa: in Ethiopia. In cooperation with itsown installation company (SunTransfer), a networkof 15 rural solar centers was set up in the followingyears, each with trained technicians for mainte-nance and service. On behalf of the Stiftung Solar-energie - Solar Energy Foundation, the solar tech-nicians sold solar home systems by means of loansto Ethiopian households. By 2012, more than10,000 solar home systems were thus sold and thePAYG technology was constantly being furtherdeveloped.

It was the beginning of the PAYG boom in EastAfrica. Later, SunTransfer transferred the success-ful model to Kenya. Shortly afterwards, today'sleading PAYG companies emerged: Mobisol, Bboxxor M-Kopa. Their merit is to have made the sale bymeans of consumer loans also interesting for in-vestors in Europe and the USA on a larger scale.

Jürgen Gehr did not live to see the global boomof his PAYG idea: he died on August,22 2007 at theage of only 54 years.

Harald Schützeichel is Editor of Sun-Connect News.

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Kathryn M. O’Neill

Going off grid: Tata researchers tackle rural electrification

ore than 300 million people in Indiahave no access to grid electricity, andthe problem is especially acute in rural

communities, which can be difficult and expensiveto reach with grid power.

At MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and De-sign, researchers are exploring ways to extendelectricity access to such communities usingmicrogrids—independent electricity generationand distribution systems that service one village oreven just a few houses. In addition to being flexiblein size, microgrids can run on whatever powersources are available, including wind, hydropower,and the source accessible at all sites: solar power.

“A large number of people, particularly in ruralIndia, won’t be electrified for decades, and thesituation is similar in other parts of southern Asiaand [in] sub-Saharan Africa. The statistics say that1.5 billion people worldwide lack access to electri-city, but many more don’t have reliable access,”says Robert Stoner, deputy director for science andtechnology at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) anddirector of the Tata Center. “We’re looking forways to make electricity available to everyonewithout necessarily having to go through the costlyand time-consuming process of extending the[national] electric grid. With policy support in theform of regulation and financing…it’s conceivablethat microgrids could proliferate very quickly. Theymight not supply a level of access equivalent tothat offered by a well-managed grid but wouldprovide an affordable and significant step forwardin quality of life.”

Microgrids can be powered by diesel genera-

tors or by renewable technologies, among themsolar power, which is becoming more attractive asthe cost of solar technology falls. “If you use solar,[the fuel is] essentially free,” says Rajeev Ram, MITprofessor of electrical engineering and a Tata Cen-ter researcher. In addition, he says, “microgrids areattractive because they let you pool resources.”

Nevertheless, the widespread adoption ofmicrogrids has been stymied by several challenges,including the high cost of setting up private gene-ration and distribution systems and the businessrisk of investing in a system that’s susceptible tobeing undercut by an extension of the electric grid.

At the Tata Center, researchers are addressingsuch concerns from multiple angles—from map-ping out national electrification networks, to pro-viding planning assistance to rural entrepreneurs,to developing technology that can make it easier tobuild microgrids organically, from the grassrootsup. Indeed, the researchers say that properly de-signed microgrids can be grid-compatible, reducingthe risk to investors and providing an intermediatestage to grid connection where this is technicallyand economically viable.

“Everyone agrees we have to scale microgrids”to address the rural electrification gap, says BrianSpatocco, a Tata Fellow who worked on microgridsas a PhD candidate in materials science and engi-neering at MIT. The problem, he says, is that “notone size fits all.”

Reference Electrification ModelTo address the microgrid challenge at the

macro level, Tata researchers led by Stoner and

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Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, a visiting professor at theMIT Sloan School of Management from IIT-ComillasUniversity in Madrid, Spain, have been developingand implementing a sophisticated computer pro-gram that can help government planners determi-ne the best way to provide electricity to all poten-tial consumers.

The Reference Electrification Model (REM) pullsinformation from a range of data sets—which inIndia include satellite imagery, the Census of India,and India’s National Sample Survey, which gathersstatistics for planning purposes. REM then uses thedata to determine where extending the grid will bemost cost-effective and where other solutions,such as a microgrid or even an isolated home solarsystem, would be more practical.

“We are approaching the problem of ruralelectrification from the perspective of plannersand regulators,” Stoner says.

Satellite imagery is used to map the buildings ina given location, and demand is estimated basedon the types and profiles of the buildings. REMthen uses pricing and technical data on suchequipment as solar panels, batteries, and wiring toestimate the costs of electrification on or off thegrid and to make preliminary engineering designsfor the recommended systems. The model essenti-ally produces a snapshot of a lowest-cost electrifi-cation plan as if one could be built up overnight.

“This is a technology tool that [officials] can use

to inform policy decisions,” says Claudio Vergara, aMITEI postdoctoral associate working on the REMproject. “We’re not trying to tell them what theplan should be, but we’re helping them comparedifferent options. After a decision has been madeand detailed information about the sites is ga-thered, REM can be used to produce more detaileddesigns to support the implementation of each ofthe three electrification modes.”

Currently, Tata researchers are using REM tomodel an electrification plan for Vaishali, a districtof 3.5 million people in the state of Bihar in India.“We’re designing the system down to everyhouse,” Stoner says.

In the project, results from REM were used toidentify the best locations in Vaishali for microgrids(see diagram below). In July 2015, the team visitedtwo candidate sites, each with between 70 and 250houses, and REM will now be used to produce adetailed technical design showing all theequipment and wiring needed to electrify them.Then, Vergara says, a local Tata partner will putREM to the test by actually building the microgrids.“The pilot will help us improve the model,” Vergarasays. “We’re making many modeling assumptionsnow, so we need real-world validation.” Once thesoftware has been perfected, Stoner says, theresearchers plan to make it openly available.

This map shows the results of using the Reference Electrification Model (REM)—a computer program designed at MIT with collaborationfrom IIT-Comillas University—to determine a minimum-cost electrification solution for each one of the approximately 400,000 buildingsestimated to be non-electrified in the Vaishali district of Bihar, India. The program assigns each building to either a stand-alone system, amicrogrid, or a grid extension (indicated by the low-voltage lines).

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GridFormAnother project under way at the Tata Center

addresses the barriers to entry for potentialmicrogrid entrepreneurs. Such businesses faceseveral hurdles, including the high cost of determi-ning the most cost-effective sites for their projects.India’s government and public utilities often provi-de no information about where the electric grid islikely to be extended next, and calculating thelikely demand for electricity in a village typicallyrequires costly, on-the-ground research—all of

which makes it tough for any potential microgridentrepreneur to make the case for profitability andto secure financing.

Three MIT graduate students and a postdoc areworking to develop GridForm, a planning frame-work that rapidly identifies, digitizes, and modelsrural development sites, with the goal of automa-ting some of the work required to design amicrogrid for a small village.

This GridForm model of a village in Bihar, India, shows the optimal layout of hardware for the load profiles of the community. Each building,color-coded by the cost (in Indian rupees) of supplying electricity to that structure, is wired to a central generation/storage node (solidlines), and the nodes are connected to each other (dotted lines).

“Doing a custom system for every village crea-tes so much work for companies—in time and inthe human resources burden—that it can’t scale,”Spatocco says. “We’re trying to expedite the plan-ning piece so [entrepreneurs] can serve more pe-ople and reduce costs.”

Like REM, GridForm begins with satellite data,but GridForm goes on to use advanced machinelearning to model individual villages with a highlevel of detail. “We’ll say this is a house and this isa house, hit run, and the machine learns the pro-perties of a house, such as size and shape,”

Spatocco says. The goal is to produce a hardwareand cost model of a target village that is 90% accu-rate before anyone even visits the site.

GridForm also develops load estimates, basedon factors such as demographics and the proximityof buildings, and provides entrepreneurs withpotential microgrid designs and even lists of neces-sary equipment. The program incorporates datasets on solar radiance and uses an algorithm todetermine the best configuration of solar panels,battery packs, and distribution wires to power thegreatest number of houses at the lowest cost.

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“We’re providing everything from siting toplanning to implementation—the whole process,”says Kendall Nowocin, a PhD student in electricalengineering and computer science working onGridForm. The other two researchers working onthe project are George Chen PhD ’15, an MITxpostdoctoral teaching fellow, and Ling Xu, a PhDstudent in health sciences and technology.

The main difference from REM, the researcherssay, is that GridForm envisions electrification beingbuilt from the ground up rather than from the topdown. “We think rural entrepreneurs will electrifythemselves,” Spatocco says. “We want to createinsights that are immediately useful to practitio-ners on the ground—what to buy, what it will cost,where to put it.”

Already GridForm has been used to develop de-tailed microgrid plans for four villages in the stateof Bihar, and the team is working with Indian socialenterprise SELCO Solar to do the installations,providing service to 2,000 to 3,000 people.

uLinkA third Tata Center project focuses on fostering

the organic growth of microgrids by enabling resi-dents to share extra power-generating capacitywith their neighbors via an inexpensive piece ofhardware, the uLink power management unit(PMU).

A “demand response” system that meters andcontrols the flow of electricity, uLink can adjust thedemands it serves based on the supply of electrici-ty that’s available. The system reflects an innovati-ve approach to electrification, Ram says—one thatacknowledges that the standards for electrificationcommon in the developed world are unrealisticallyhigh for poor, remote areas. Building in the systemredundancies necessary to ensure 99.9% availabili-ty is simply too expensive—and particularly unrea-listic in India, where even the areas served by thegrid are plagued by power outages.

“Here we can guarantee a basic level of service,but we don’t guarantee 99.9%,” Ram says. “This isa very powerful way to manage the cost of electri-city infrastructure. Demand response allows you tosize the system for average demand, versus peakdemand.”

uLink’s power management units (PMUs) are shown connecting generating sources, batteries, and loads to form an ad hoc microgrid.Sophisticated computing power within the units enables power and information to be transferred automatically throughout the microgrid,which could one day employ the mobile phone system (aka the GSM network) for payments and system monitoring.

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What that means is that when the sun is shi-ning and batteries are fully charged, microgridcustomers can run all of their appliances, but whenit’s been cloudy for a few days and the system islow on power, uLink can signal users to shut offloads; as a last resort, it can even shut off loadsautomatically. Automating this function eases thesocial difficulty of sharing electricity, the resear-chers say. Once users have pooled their resources,there’s no need to argue over who can use whichappliances; uLink allots electricity based on whichloads have been predetermined as “critical” andtherefore not subject to shutoff when system de-mand peaks. Everything else can be shut off byuLink as needs arise.

Users themselves determine which few loadsare “critical,” providing an element of choice nottypically seen in home solar systems, which hard-wire their loads. uLink features several outlets,enabling users to plug in a variety of appliances. Atmaximum capacity, the initial prototype low-voltage, DC system provides about 25 watts perhousehold, enough to run a fan, a cellphone char-ger, and a couple of lights.

“The hardest part is making a box with all thesefunctions at a cost people can afford,” Ram says,noting that the uLink consumer unit is designed tocost about as much as a cellphone, making it af-fordable for most Indian villagers.

uLink was field-tested in June 2015—five hou-ses were wired together for two weeks—and the

delivery, metering, and networking systems work-ed well. The next milestone for the developers is totest the algorithm designed to estimate how muchelectricity is available from the system’s batteriesand solar panels and optimally shed loads. “This isdefinitely a work in progress,” Ram says.

Indeed, all three Tata Center projects are stillbeing refined, but together they offer a rich portfo-lio of potential solutions to the problem of ruralelectrification, the effects of which many of theresearchers have seen firsthand.

“Electricity is not just empowering. It’s an enab-ling force. Electricity goes right into livelihood acti-vities,” Spatocco says, noting that just a few lightsmake it possible for residents to work in the eve-nings, for example, or to improve their efficiencywith simple machinery, such as sewing machines.“People can double or triple their economic out-put.”

There are also benefits few in the West mightimagine, as Ram discovered by interviewing resi-dents of one non-electrified Indian village: “Theyconveyed how frightening it can be to have a snakein the village if no one has a light.”

Kathryn M. O’Neill is MITEI correspondent.

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Debajit Palit

Sustainable electricity for all: Experiences withmini-grids in Senegal

aka Saar is a small remote village inSenegal, about two hours’ drive fromthe nearest city Thies and another one

and half hours’ drive from Dakar, the capital ofSenegal. Until two years back, it had around 700residents who depended on paraffin candles andsmall torches for their lighting needs. There weresome diesel generators to meet the few productiveloads in the village. In 2015, a company called`Enersa’ established a 10 kWp solar power plantwith a 1.5 km underground distribution network toprovide electricity to the households and smallbusinesses. The aim was to generate clean electri-city from a village-scale solar power supply systemfor the 60 households and small shops. Similar toEnersa, there are many other small power compa-nies that have set up solar–diesel hybrid mini-gridsin Senegal, primarily with support from differentdonor agencies. For example, the German develo-pment agency, GIZ, has reportedly supported set-ting up of 300 mini-grids in the country. Further,around 400 mini-grids are being implemented byASER (Agence Sénégalaise d’Electrification Rurale)with support from multilateral and developmentfinance institutions.

Status of rural electrification in SenegalAs per World Energy Outlook 2015 report, close

to 45 percent of the population, that is, approxi-mately 6 million people, in Senegal lack access toelectricity, as compared to 68 percent unelectrifiedpopulation in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, 1.2

billion people do not have electricity access with amajority of them, approximately 634 million, insub-Saharan Africa. Senegal relatively has a muchbetter electricity access rate than many other sub-Saharan countries, particularly its neighboringcountries, where rural access rate ranges between2 and 20 percent. This energy poverty – lack ofaccess to modern energy services—manifest itselfas dependence on costly and harmful fuel forlighting and associated household pollution resul-ting in adverse effect on health.

Senegal’s national utility, Senelec, maintains anelectricity grid that reaches most of the country’surban centers and large rural habitations. As partof the reforms in the late 1990s, the governmentcreated the ASER to increase the electrificationrate in the rural areas. ASER currently is managingtwo major programs: (1) the rural electrificationpriority program, under which it has allocated sixconcessionaires to extend rural electrificationthrough the private sector, and (2) locally initiatedrural electrification projects.

Experiences with mini-grids in SenegalAs a part of the multi-partners research project

called ‘Solar xChange’, I visited Senegal with ateam of co-researchers from Norway and Kenya,during March 2016, to understand the energyaccess situation and learn from the solar hybridmini-grids that have been installed by private deve-lopers. The Solar xChange project is led by theUniversity of Oslo, and our institution, TERI (The

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Energy and Resources Institute), is one of the rese-arch partners. Our team visited five villages nearThies city, which are served by hybrid mini-grids.All these mini-grids are run commercially withusers paying metered tariffs based on a novel con-cept called “electricity blocks,” developed by aGerman company, Inensus. These mini-grids wereimplemented during the last two to four years andthey all are functioning well, except one, whereone of the charge controllers was found non-functional. The villagers who have taken connec-tions from the mini-grids are using the electricity tomeet their basic lighting needs and for chargingtheir cell phones. There are also some small com-mercial enterprises using electricity from the mini-grids in these villages.

In Maka Saar, there are two shops sellinggrocery products and each has a freezer to storecold drinks, ice cubes, beer bottle, etc. These shopsare paying around 16,800 XOF (1 US$ = 584 XOF)per month towards electricity charges for the free-zers. They shared that they are earning approx.15,000 XOF per month after meeting all their ex-penses, including the expenses on electricity. Incase of households in this village and other villagesin the cluster, they are paying a tariff of 925 XOFper week per electricity block. One typical block isequal to maximum 50 W of load running for fourhours a day, that is, around 1.4 kWh per week. Thecompany also collected a one-time connection feeof around 20,000 XOF per electricity block. Typical-ly, the households in the villages, where our teamvisited, were found to have subscribed to one totwo blocks to meet their basic household need.However, we also found some larger householdsthat have subscribed three to four blocks and arerunning TV and fan in addition to the LED lights.

While tariff might appear to be on a higher sideas compared to the grid electricity provided bySenelec, in the absence of grid electricity in mostof the villages in the country, decentralized electri-city is currently the only reliable option in thesevillages and many other similar villages in thecountry. The Village Power Committee, set up byEnersa in all the villages where they have mini-grids, said that they plan to have a few more smallproductive enterprises that can run on electricityfrom the mini-grids. Enersa also shared that de-pending upon increase in demand for electricity,they may think of increasing the power plant capa-

city in future by coupling small wind generatingsystems with the existing solar plants.

We visited another village, Ndombil, where wefound a maize grinding shop, being run on electrici-ty from the mini-grids, in addition to around 64household connections. The shop was found tohave two grinding machines (2.2 kW and 1.5 kW),installed recently, with one machine converting theraw maize into the coarse grain and the secondmachine grinding it to fine powdery grain. Cur-rently, the demand for grinding is not high, and themachines run only for an hour per day; however,the entrepreneur was optimistic that in a month’stime, there will be more customers and both sys-tems will run for longer hours. Though the purcha-se price of the grinding machines and the paymentbeing made towards electricity charges vis-à-visthe entrepreneur’s current earning from maizegrinding do not justify the business viability, thefact that solar mini-grids can support productiveenterprise such as a grain mill, justifies the efficacyof decentralized projects in meeting both house-hold and small business’ energy demand.

We also found some unconnected householdsor de-electrified households in these villages,which have not taken the connection or are notbuying electricity blocks every month due to mo-netary constraints. On discussion, it was found thatthey are actually spending more on torch batteriesthan the price of an electricity block. However, asthey can buy batteries for their torches at differenttimes during the month, it is easier for them tospread the spending than paying Enersa at onetime. We also visited three other villages, SineMoussa Abdou, Leona, and Wakhal Diam, all attraveling time of around one to two hours fromThies, and found similar usages of electricity inthese villages.

Challenges in scaling up: Some solutionsThis may be little early to predict whether the

mini-grid models can continue to providesustainable electricity in the villages of Senegal andsub-Saharan Africa. Most of the projects face anumber of challenges—technical, policy, and regu-latory. Discussions with the regulatory commissionand ministry officials indicate that Senegal is plan-ning to double its electrification rate in the nextfew years, primarily by extending the central grid.They are also planning to harmonize the tariff for

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the grid and the mini-grid systems for reasons ofequity. However, grid tariff is much lower as com-pared to the tariff charged by the private operatorsof the mini-grids (approximately 117 XOF per kWhfor central grid versus more than 500 XOF per KWhfor mini-grids). Enersa has thus slowed down ontheir initial plan for setting up 30 mini-grids becau-se of the lack of clarity on the future treatment ofmini-grids by the electricity sector regulator inSenegal. The regulator is reportedly also not provi-ding the license or approving the tariff for mini-grids and, thus, the mini-grids are being operatedwithout approvals and with uncertainty. This is acommon issue across sub-Saharan Africa and SouthAsian countries, where mini-grids have been suc-cessfully piloted by many private sector players butare slow in scaling-up. While there is definitely aneed for private finance to scale-up electricityaccess in energy-starved countries, unless clarity isprovided through better policy formulation by therespective governments, the sector may not seescaling-up in the short to medium term beyond thegrant-supported pilots. Further, an objective andscientific approach need to be adopted to set tarifffor grid-connected and remote mini-grid–connected consumers and/or ensure cross-subsidyfrom a universal energy access obligation fund;otherwise, the mini-grids would be at an obviousdisadvantageous position. The mini-grids shouldalso be designed such that the infrastructure is gridcompatible and can be interconnected with themain grid system, to draw and feed energy, as andwhen the main grid reaches such remote villages.

Another key issue worth highlighting is buildingthe technical support system to provide the requi-red post-installation maintenance services to themini-grids. As mentioned in the previous section,one of the charge controllers in Leone village wasnot working and reportedly became defective dueto a lightning strike. Due to this, the power plant isnot working at full capacity and there are frequentpower cuts, resulting in strong dissatisfactionamong the users. We were told by the Enersatechnical person that the equipment needs to besent to a different country for rectification as thereis no authorized service center of the originalequipment manufacturer in Senegal. This calls forbuilding technical support systems in the sub-Saharan countries where mini-grids are being setup. As business is currently not adequate, the

companies may find it difficult to invest in buildingsupporting infrastructure, but without the mainte-nance infrastructure, scale-up is not possible. Pro-grammatic grant support can play a big role inaddressing the issue and in creating the necessarypost-installation maintenance infrastructurecovering different regions of Africa.

Last but not the least, access to finance at theright terms and conditions is critical for scaling-up.While partial grant support from various donors isavailable, generation of the remaining capital atlower cost and/or without any collateral is difficultfor many private players because of the high per-ceived risks of investments in mini-grids. The prob-lem gets compounded by the smaller capacity ofthese projects. Donor agencies need to work withlocal governments to create a revolving fund thatcan be used to provide soft and collateral freefinance. However, a strong performance monito-ring system will also be required to ensure that thefund is utilized properly to achieve the projectoutcome.

Is grid extension the remedy?While there is an ongoing debate between the

efficacy of grid extension and off-grid models forelectrification of remote rural communities, a re-cent paper titled “Rural electricity access in SouthAsia: Is grid extension the remedy? A critical re-view”, published in the Renewable and SustainableEnergy Reviews has dealt with the issue compre-hensively by juxtaposing grid and off-grid modes interms of their merits and demerits.The paper ba-sed on extensive literature reviews, infers thatinstead of considering each of the modes of electri-fication in a stand-alone manner and perceivingthem as mutually exclusive or competing with oneanother, as usually perceived in the policy sphere,off-grid electrification can actually be consideredas a complementary mode and should ideally beintegrated with grid expansion to serve the biggercause of ensuring universal rural electrification.

Debajit Palit is Associate Director and Senior Fellowat TERI.

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Godfrey Ogbemudia

When the grid becomes the back-up energy source forbusiness enterprise - The Nigerian story

s blood is to human beings, so is energy tobusiness enterprise. The different betweenthe developed countries and under-

developed countries of the world is energy access.For example, an IEA report in 2010 stated that theresidential electricity consumption in Sub-SaharanAfrica, excluding South Africa, is roughly equivalentto consumption in New York.

It was widely reported in several national dail-ies in the country on the 31st of March 2016, whenall generating plants in Nigeria for about three (3)hours produced zero (0) Megawatts of electricity.The most interesting thing about it was; nobodynoticed it and it did not affect economic activitiesin any way due to the fact that Nigerians and busi-ness enterprises operating in the country have nowmade their generators the grid and the grid as theirback-up energy supply.

It no more news that a lot of industries havebeen forced to close down their manufacturingactives here in Nigeria and have relocated to othercountries due to the epileptic power supply in thecountry. Other business places that are still in thecountry are find it very difficult to break even dueto the increasing cost of production occasioned bylack or in most cases poor electricity supply. Busi-ness enterprises run almost entirely on generatorspowered by diesel or petrol.

The World Bank has earlier ranked Nigeria 187out of 189 countries with regards to the ease ofgetting electricity. In March 2016, the National

President of the Manufacturers Association ofNigeria (MAN), Dr. Frank Udemba Jacobs, Speakingat the sideline during a courtesy visit to the Minis-ter of Science and Technology, Dr. OgbonnayaOnu, in his office in Abuja put thedaily cost incur-red by its members in generating electricity topower their industries at over N9 billion.

Current Challenges with the GridSince 2001 when the National Electric Power

Policy was adopted up tillMay 2015 with the un-bundling of Transmission Company of Nigeria(TCN)into an Independent System Operator (public) anda Transmission Service Provider (private),the fe-deral government has shown real commitment toprivatization drive of electricity sector here in Nige-ria. In spite of all these, technically the grid is stillfar from the capacity of been able to deliver atleast40,000MW of electricity daily to meet thedemand of the population put at about 180 millionas at April 2016, for Nigeria to achieve her vision20:20:20 goal.

Currently, Nigeria can’t even boast of 5,000MWdaily generation. If you combine the 23 generatingcompanies (GENCOs) together in terms of installedcapacity for both the gas and hydro power plants,it’s about 12,067MW but you never get this fromthem. According to the National Energy RegulatoryCommission (NERC), the installed available capacityis about 6,840MW. But right now since 2015, theactual generating capacity is 3,941 MW which is

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usually occasioned by shortage of gas supply andreduction of water level at the dams.

According to (REEEP), Nigeria’s per capitapower capacity is 29 watts per person comparedwith Brazil’s 480 watts per person and America’s2,900 watts per person. Nigerians connected to thenational grid experience 80% demand/supply gapand most businesses self-generate their power.Additionally, the transmission network is over-loaded, with poor voltage profile in most parts ofthe network. There are frequent system collapsesand exceedingly high transmission losses, often inthe region of 30-35%.

Solving Business Enterprises Energy Challengesin Nigeria

With the uncertainty surrounding the petrole-um industries as a result of global decision to moveaway from fossil fuel completely and the currentchallenges in the national grid, solar energy is thesustainable solution to the issue of stable powersupply for business enterprises in Nigeria.

Nigeria possesses huge potential of solar ener-gy sources. She lies within the sunshine belt andthe solar radiation varies from about3.5kWh/m2/day in the southern part to7kWh/m2/day in the northern region of the count-ry with an average daily sun hour of about 6-8hours per day. Most business run actively within8hours (8am-4pm) in Nigeria.

Captive generation using petrol and diesel isvery expensive and will continue to add to cost ofproduction. In 2009, in a document authored bythe Assistant General Manager, Project Monitoring

Office, Ify Ikeonu ,The Nigerian Electricity Regula-tory Commission (NERC) revealed that Nigeriansspend about N796.4 billion (approximately $5billion) yearly on fuelling their generators. Abreakdown shows that N540.9 billion was spent ondiesel and N255.5 billion goes into the purchase ofpetrol annually for power generating sets.

Doing captive generation with solar PV is farcheaper. Although the initial upfront cost may beexpensive depending on your energy demand (ifbatteries will be involved), if pays for its own self.For example, the headquarters of the organizationI currently work with, the Community Researchand Development Centre (CREDC) in Edo statesouthern, Nigeria runs completely on solar pv sys-tem which was installed September 2014. In ninemonths, the system has paid for its self and wehave never had a down time in terms of powersupply till date.

Solar system components are becoming chea-per and globally, renewable energy is attractinghuge investment yearly. The report titled “GlobalTrends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016” justreleased by UNEP and Bloomberg started thatGlobal investment in renewable power capacity, at$265.8 billion, was more than double dollar alloca-tions to new coal and gas generation, which was anestimated $130 billion in 2015.

Godfrey Ogbemudia is a renewable energy expert.

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Nidhi Bali

It’s not off-grid; it is just the smaller grid!

he biggest deterrent that prevents off-gridenergy access enterprises from scaling up isthe word off-grid! This and more was dis-

cussed during the recently held workshop on En-hancing Capacity to Accelerate off Grid Energyaccess along the side lines of the Sankalp GlobalSummit 2016. With the presence of financial insti-tutions such as banks, Non-Banking Financial Com-panies (NBFCs), impact investors, energy enterpri-ses and industry associations the event witnessedexciting discussions on ways to accelerate energyaccess for the un-electrified and under electrifiedmillions in India.

“Off-grid”, a word for decentralized energy thatis different than a grid-extended facility is the firstbarrier to be scaled to ensure rural poor perceivethis as “real” energy and a solution that issustainable and cost effective. Instead of addres-sing a decentralized solution as “off-grid”, an un-derstanding of the solution as a little or a smallergrid that meets demands better and complementsthe ‘free but unreliable grid power’ is the need ofthe hour.

Although well begun is half done. The otherhalf in case of energy access enterprises requiresequally innovative outlook. As per the participants,this half comprises aspects related to four majorareas –

People: It is very hard to recruit and retainhighly skilled people at all stages of business. Be itsenior management or field staff, talent is expensi-ve and not readily available for this sector. Theproblem notwithstanding, the challenge of founder

legacy persists where co-founders find it hard todelegate tasks and find that they are unable tofocus on strategic business areas.

Policy: Ambiguity in policies regarding universalelectrification and political grandstanding keepsinvestors interested in “off-grid” ma

Partnerships: Partnerships are an importantelement for enterprises that lack credible marketinformation and last mile reach.

Pioneer support: A lack of ecosystem for pio-neers to try new innovations in the sector does nothelp. With very few incubators or acceleratorsfocusing on access to energy sector in India, enter-prises fear experimentation and in absence of newtechnologies or innovations energy access

To complicate the problem with the perceptionof “off-grid”, these enterprises continue to beassessed by lenders using the traditional approa-ches like the credibility of historical track recordand availability of collaterals. Both these areaspose significant challenges since energy accessenterprises are relatively new with few collateralsand little or no credit history. Moving away fromtraditional collateral based models to cash-flowcentric models can go a long way paving way fornon-banking finance companies and innovativefinancial solution providers to take center stage.Suitable enablers like guarantee based mecha-nisms can also help channelize the initial capitalrequired to nurture and grow these enterprises.Traditional banks and microfinance institutionsmay find consumer financing easier to start with toenable growth of this critical industry.Appropriate

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business models that deliver energy ‘off the grid’as a solution and not as a product need to be en-couraged as well. Captive mini grids with a com-mercial client like telecom tower or a fuel stationas the base anchor load was discussed as an attrac-tive proposition for investors and lenders.

The core need however remains transformingthe perception of ‘off-grid’ into an understandingof a ‘smaller grid’ and this industry may turn out tobe the potential disruption that is required, muchlike what mobile phones did to telephony a decadeago. Amen!

This article is an outcome from a workshop heldat the Sankalp Global Summit 2016 supported byShakti Sustainable Energy Foundation.

Nidhi Bali is Engagement Manager at Intellecap(India).

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Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

Are batteries guilty as charged?

orldwide, the use of energy storagefrom renewable sources is rising, asmore countries commit to renewable

energy targets and attempt to reduce costs. As anexample, Australia has experienced remarkablegrowth in installations of solar photovoltaic (PV)panels in recent years. Energy storage technologiesare the next logical step; once they are sufficientlyavailable at the right price point, they are likely tohave a similar market penetration to solar PV.

The present lag in scientific understanding ofbattery energy storage systems at the domesticand small commercial level is contributing to aclear gap in policy development for battery storagebest practices. The difference in pace between thedevelopment of standards versus the technology islikely to be a significant policy issue on a globalscale.

Our research aims to use Australia as an exa-mple of a country that already has residential andcommercial uptake of battery storage technology,and thus an opportunity to set a global norm forcapability and standards in the industry. Here, wediscuss the potential social implications relating todomestic and small-scale energy storage safety,and highlight areas requiring future research.

As battery technologies advance and decreasein unit cost, the installation of sufficient batterystorage for domestic requirements is becomingmore affordable. Thus, energy storage is an increa-singly attractive prospect for many homeowners.Energy storage technologies are appealing becausethey are more environmentally sustainable and

allow consumers to reduce electricity use fromnon-renewable sources. They are also customisab-le and can be designed to suit individual householdrequirements and applications, offering homeow-ners more independence and flexibility.

Rapid growthAustralia has already experienced remarkable

growth in installations of solar photovoltaic panelsin recent years. Energy storage technologies arethe next logical step to help match renewablegeneration to electricity demand. Once the techno-logy is sufficiently available, it is predicted to havea similar market penetration to solar PV. Energystorage has the potential to stabilise and improvethe efficiency of Australia’s electricity grid, especi-ally with the increasing popularity of renewablesolar and wind generation. It can store renewableenergy for later use, and help to manage house-hold peak demand, provide backup power andadapt customer usage in response to feed-in ta-riffs. Domestic energy storage can be connected tothe centralised electrical grid to supply or receiveelectricity from the network; or it can form astand-alone system for household use.

Some companies have already begun marketingcampaigns based on future energy storage produc-tion and the industry is likely to experience signifi-cant growth as multiple companies compete formarket share. However, the speed of this newtechnology development and market diffusion hasthe potential to outpace scientific understanding ofthe limitations and risks, and the development of

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industry best practice, safety guidelines and pro-cedures, before these systems are installed.

However, the Australian public has a low awa-reness of battery storage technologies and theindustry faces the potential risk of a serious inci-dent occurring. We recommend that further rese-arch urgently addresses the global and nationalneed for standards relating to domestic energyapplications. The standards should consider whole-of-life practices, including disposal and recycling,particularly for emerging technologies such aslithium-ion battery storage systems. Greater con-sensus is also required on safety recommendationsfor different technologies.

At the front lineInterviews were held with 24 electricians who

had installed battery units and with private batterysuppliers. Participants were asked about theirexperiences with batteries through all stages ofbattery life, from transport and handling to design,installation, storage, maintenance and recycling.Three focus group workshops were held to com-plement and extend interview data. One focusgroup comprised solar PV installers with variedexperience in battery storage installations. Thesecond group comprised consumers of solar PVand/or battery storage, while the third comprisedmembers of the general public who did not havesolar PV or battery storage.

Four clear themes emerged from our research:lack of accreditation and training; lack of availableand accessible information and low general know-ledge about battery technologies; lack of common-ly accepted safety procedures, including how toextinguish a lithium fire, and; unclear standards forsome aspects of installation, maintenance, recyc-ling and disposal.

Lack of accreditation and trainingThe literature review indicated solar PV instal-

lers experienced inconsistency in solar-specificaccreditation and training as a limitation of theirindustry, given the expanding range of new busi-nesses aiming to fill the market demand for rapidgrowth in solar PV installations to capture limited-time government incentives. This suggests thatmany installers rely on general knowledge, pastexperiences and learning on the job. Focus groupparticipants noted that because of the lack of ag-

reed best practices, the rules “changed regularly”and were not enforced, checked or audited. Instal-lers therefore have variable standards for installa-tions, resulting in “some installations [being] belowstandard”. Similarly, respondents from the inter-views and focus groups indicated the significantlack of accreditation and training opportunitiesregarding battery storage installations at the do-mestic level, especially for lithium-ion batterytechnologies.

Focus group participants indicated that consu-mers had no way to tell who was a reputable in-staller and as a result; “customers now don’t trustindustry” because of experiences with some door-to-door salespeople “pushing” uptake and lower-quality installations.

Accreditation is an important signal to consum-ers that the technology is ready to be taken up andthat sufficient systems are in place for safe installa-tion and monitoring over time. As one consumernoted: “Do I need to know about batteries? I justneed [someone] to come and install it.”

However, if there is no way of finding an accre-dited installer, consumers are forced to do moreresearch and have more understanding of thesystem themselves. This key barrier to energystorage uptake results in a range of different sys-tems, some of which have been put together by amotivated, yet untrained, do-it-yourself consumer.As one installer pointed out, there were “plenty ofDIY installations out there”.

Consumers are confused about how to find anappropriate installer, and installers experiencetension and rivalry over who is sufficiently skilledto service this market and which procedures areconsidered best practice. Most importantly, ina-dequate training and accreditation results in thepotential for unsafe installations.

Lack of informationResearch identified the unavailability of specific

information about energy storage, particularlyregarding choosing the right product, and basicknowledge of correct installation, maintenance,disposal and recycling of the product. Lack of in-formation was noted as a barrier by consumers infocus groups: How long will it last? How much doesit cost? How big is it?’ How safe is it? How muchmaintenance does it need? As a result of so many

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questions, they came to the conclusion that “it’stoo difficult”.

Furthermore, very little information is availableabout environmental effects after disposal. Thishas affected both installers and customers, becau-se despite “huge interest in battery storage”, con-sumers were left thinking the industry was not yetadvanced enough to make a purchase. Otherwise,for motivated consumers who persisted with loo-king into making a purchase, the only informationavailable was highly technical, confusing and hadlarge gaps. Some thought you would “need a uni-versity degree” to understand it.

The social implications of inadequate informa-tion include potentially significant safety incidentsand injuries. As one installer noted, it was just luckthat the industry “hasn’t had idiots kill others yet”.

Another area of confusion was the lack of con-sensus on how to extinguish a lithium-ion batterystorage fire. Australian residential energy storageinstallations presently do not require passive oractive fire suppressions systems as part of theirinstallation (excluding in the ACT). This is mainlydue to a lack of understanding or knowledge of thebest way to extinguish such a fire. Current litera-ture suggests using sand, liquid nitrogen, watermist, lithium chloride, foam, or wait it out – all ofwhich have advantages and disadvantages. As oneinstaller explained: “I blew up $25,000 of lithiumbatteries to check the failure ratings.” As the requi-red scientific information did not exist, he decidedhe needed to make his own assessment.

Lack of safety proceduresIn addition to the lack of information, other sa-

fety risks identified in our research included unsafebattery storage installations by untrained or inex-perienced installers or homeowners, anduncertainty about the safety procedures requiredby installers, homeowners or the emergency ser-vices. This was especially concerning to installers,given that different battery storage systems havedifferent fire responses, but that homeowners andemergency services were unlikely to be able todifferentiate between them. This problem is com-pounded by the lack of best practices or standardson warning labels for the batteries and storagesystem enclosures.

Examples of risky procedures cited in inter-views included installations that were exposed to

high and variable temperatures, or used for multip-le purposes, such as a shelf or table, or storage ofgarden tools. Some installers had already experi-enced safety incidents – luckily, without injury –such as smoking lithium-ion battery units.

During one focus group, an installer gave anexample specific to solar PV systems without sto-rage, which involve the risks of roof fires from roof-top electrical isolators, and of being unable to turnoff systems from the ground. With the addition ofbattery storage, the consequences of a fire due tofailure could be even more catastrophic. Electricalisolators are designed to meet minimum safetyand electrical standards at the time of installation.However, the present standards do not addressthe degradation of the isolator hardware due toAustralian environmental exposure over the com-missioned life of the installation. As part of overallsystem safety procedures, cabling and devices suchas roof-top isolators that feed into battery storagesystems also need to be prevented from physicallydegrading over the life of the installation.

The safe disposal and recycling of batteriesfaces significant challenges in battery chemistriesstill under research and development, such asphosphate or manganese-based lithium batterychemistries, which have little or no valuable metalssuch as cobalt or nickel. These technologies have anet negative value for recycling; the effort to recyc-le them only for their lithium content will be veryhigh, and recycling in the long term will likely bemainly for ecological benefits and adherence toenvironmental laws. This is unlikely to providesufficient incentive to drive the development ofsafe disposal and recycling requirements.

Another issue identified in our research was theabsence of reporting – for example, very few resi-dential and light commercial stationary energystorage installations or incidents have been recor-ded. There are no records or mandatory reportingprocess requirements to capture this informationin the Australian industry. As one installer noted,he had heard of 167 fires in six months as a resultof faulty roof-top isolators, but this was not cap-tured in reports and so was unable to be substan-tiated. However, it demonstrates the lack of repor-ting or data repositories for current installations.

Unclear standardsSome standards are available for mature or es-

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tablished energy storage technologies and for theconnection of inverters to the electricity network:for example, lead-acid batteries (AS 4029), nickel-cadmium batteries (AS 3731) and their applicationsas secondary batteries for use with stand-alonepower systems (AS 4086 and AS/NZS 4509). How-ever, several of these standards are out of date (upto 22 years old) and only consider specific cases,such as off-grid and stand-alone, while modern useof these technologies has expanded to broaderapplications.

The standards are currently being revised, witha focus on residential (up to 10-kVA single phase)and commercial (up to 30-kVA three phase) appli-cations. The timeframe for the development ofthese standards is unclear. Meanwhile, the indust-ry is proceeding with installations.

Other existing standards cover a variety of gridand off-grid connections, vehicle-to-grid connec-tions and demand response. New standards willneed to include demand response capabilities,electromagnetic compatibility, smart communica-tion, training and maintenance, transportation,safety and emergency guidelines, and environmen-tal/recycling requirements.

As noted in the previous section, standards areunclear regarding the labelling of battery storagesystems, with no differentiation required whenlabelling different battery types. This issue is alsoapparent in the disposal and recycling of batteries.For instance, lead-acid batteries have strong andestablished standards, while there are significantgaps for lithium-ion and other chemistries, whichare mostly sent overseas for processing.

General knowledgeThe interviews and focus groups noted that ge-

neral public understanding and awareness aboutenergy storage technologies is low, especially re-garding safety. Participants emphasised that it wasimportant to avoid panic or undue sensationalismof the dangers of energy storage. However, theythought it was just as important to avoid a seriousincident through having a basic understanding ofthe risks and proper procedures for handling batte-ries.

Consumer perceptionsThe main perceptions about energy storage

from consumers were positive. The majority find it

attractive as “free energy” and “clean energy”,which enabled one to “have the lifestyle you wantand not worry about the cost”, and feel good to“leave something for our grandchildren in terms ofthe environment.” Many consumers also noted theattractiveness of being completely independentand saw it as very appealing to “go completely off-grid”.

However, the technology was seen to be toonew to implement now: there were still “teethingproblems” and it was still perceived to be “tooexpensive”. Perceptions about the size or numberof batteries required and their placement werealso considered a barrier by some consumers: asone participant noted, “I don’t want anothershed.”

Some misperceptions about batteries were alsonoted. One consumer said that “they wouldn’t begiving us batteries that can’t be recycled”, whileanother stated that “it’s not going to be a lead-acidbattery, it’s going to be much more sophisticatedthan that.” A commonly held misperception was: “Ithought there was just one battery in differentsizes.”

Such comments demonstrate that batteryenergy storage technology is an area of complexsocial perceptions, misperceptions, lack of infor-mation, assumptions and beliefs that are rarelyresearched.

Where to from here?Our results highlight that current levels of

energy storage installations in domestic settingsare outpacing consumer – and in some cases, in-staller – information and understanding. Focusgroup participants felt that this posed a real risk ofa serious, industry-damaging incident occurring.This demonstrates an urgent need for further rese-arch into developing scientific consensus on safetyrecommendations and best practices for installingdomestic energy storage technologies. Participantsalso identified a need to develop clear, consistentstandards and best practices for using energy sto-rage in the home, particularly regarding newertechnologies such as lithium-ion. Better education,specific training and accreditation is also requiredto ensure that essential information reaches thosewho are using these technologies.

The lag in scientific understanding of batterystorage at the domestic level contributes to a clear

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gap in policy development for battery storagetechnologies. The difference in pace between thedevelopment of standards and technology is alsolikely to be a significant policy issue on a globalscale. The wide range of applications for energystorage technologies; including grid-connection,vehicle-to-grid, plug-and-play systems, distributedenergy and smart grid integration; all need to beconsidered to avoid similar gaps between marketsand sufficient scientific and standard status.

To close this gap, new standards must be deve-loped that incorporate demand response capabili-ties, electromagnetic compatibility, smart commu-nication, training and maintenance, transportation,safety and emergency guidelines, and environmen-tally friendly disposal and recycling requirements.

Science and government must work with in-

dustry in this process to urgently address this gapand avoid serious and preventable safety incidents.

This white paper was authored by Aysha Fle-ming, Aditi Mankad, Kate Cavanagh, Chris Price,Sam Behrens, Nigel Haigh andOwen Lim of theCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial ResearchOrganisation.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and IndustrialResearch Organisation, is Australia's national sci-ence agency.

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Laurie Guevara-Stone

Changing lives with solar microgrids

aiti is the poorest the country in the wes-tern hemisphere. Only 25 percent of the10.3 million people in the country have

access to electricity. One nonprofit organization istesting a solution that could not only change thelives of the unelectrified in Haiti, but could be amodel of how to bring electricity to the 1.2 billionpeople in the world still living in the dark.

EarthSpark International has built a 93 kW so-lar-powered microgrid in the small town of LesAnglais (pop. 3,000 in the “downtown” area),which currently supplies clean reliable power toapproximately 2,000 people.

Why a microgrid?Haiti has more than 30 existing municipal

microgrids, but most of them don’t work. And evenwhen they do function, they run on diesel andoperate just a few hours a day, a few days a week.So EarthSpark’s goal was to provide people with24-hour clean affordable electricity.

EarthSpark began working in Haiti providingpeople with small solar home systems and solarlanterns, products that are life-changing tools forpeople without access to grid electricity. But theorganization soon realized that those aren’t thesolutions to which everyone aspires. “To trulyunlock economic opportunity, people need accessto higher levels of electricity than what a solarhome system can provide,” Allison Archambault,president of EarthSpark International, told RMI.

“With the right conditions minigrids can provi-de energy services in a low-cost sweet spot

between small levels of energy consumption thatcan be effectively served by small stand-alone solarsystems and traditional grid extension,” accordingto Eric Wanless, a principal in RMI’s internationalpractice leading the Sustainable Energy for Econo-mic Development initiative. EarthSpark isn’t theonly group focusing on microgrids. Husk Power hasbrought electricity to 200,000 people in the highlyunelectrified state of Bihar in India, using ricehusks to fuel microgrids; Powerhive, Devergy, andPowerGen are bringing power to East Africa withsolar microgrids; and Gham Power is building solarmicrogrids in rural Nepal.

A microgrid can give residences and businessesenough power to run motors, process agriculturalproducts, and power freezers. Plus, much of theelectricity used by rural industry is seasonal, suchas an agricultural mill, which is used during harvestseason and on market days. “Building an energysystem just for that mill would mean an asset thatis under-utilized much of the time,” adds Archam-bault. “But with a microgrid, you can use thatcapacity for other uses, and everyone buys downthe cost for everyone else. We like to say our sys-tem is powerful enough to energize industry, andprogressive enough to serve every single custo-mer.”

Tackling technical challengesMany technical challenges arise when building

a microgrid that you don’t necessarily encounterwith individual systems. The EarthSpark teamlooked all over the world to find a low-cost, high-

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functionality meter that would allow their smallutility to customize tariffs, manage demand, andoffer pay-as-you-use services. They couldn’t findanything, so they designed their own. The Spark-Meter technology is now installed in nine differentcountries serving microgrid and central grid opera-tors.

The SparkMeter metering and billing system isa critical component in the Les Anglais microgrid asit allows people to prepay and buy as much electri-city as they need, in the same way Haitians buyphone credits, and in the same way they are usedto spending money on kerosene or diesel. Tariffsare different for different customer classes, andthere is also time-of-use pricing. For example, inthe middle of the day the solar array generatesmore power than is needed to charge the 400 kWhof batteries in the system, so the surplus electricityis sold at a cheaper rate.

Overcoming logistical challengesWorking in developing countries like Haiti

brings a lot of logistical challenges as well. There isoften not a clear process for implementing innova-tive projects. When Earthspark hired a firm fromthe Dominican Republic to build the distributionsystem, the firm brought a crane to help install thepoles and wires. Unfortunately, the crane got stuckon the border for five weeks as the officials we-ren’t sure how to deal with a vehicle that was not atruck or a car. All of the linemen and staff, not tomention the community members, were extremelyfrustrated as the installation was put on hold forover a month. Finally the head of the largest tele-communications company in Haiti lent the projecta crane.

Archambault calls the process “derisking bydoing.” The actual construction process revealedwhere the hiccups might be. “A lot of unknownsand a lot of risks remain,” she says. “We’re doingthe research and development on the businessmodel, focusing on Haiti, but solutions we’re co-ming up with are relevant to a lot of places aroundthe world that need energy access.”

Confronting legal and regulatory challengesOne of the biggest challenges comes in the le-

gal and regulatory framework in Haiti, or lackthereof. In the absence of a clear legal and regula-tory framework it will be difficult to get investors.

While family foundations, National Geographic, theUnited Nations, and USAID funded the firstmicrogrid, Earthspark wants to get to an investablemodel, which means a proven track record.

All of these challenges are not specific to Haiti,as can be seen in RMI’s current work to help theRwandan government raise the country’s electrifi-cation rate from 24 percent to 70 percent by 2018.RMI recently delivered a diagnostic with actionablerecommendations to the government on how tosupply around 50 percent of the population withpower from the grid, and over 20 percent of thepopulation with power from off-grid systems. Thediagnostic included a set of recommendations thatneed to be implemented quickly in order to createthe conditions necessary for future success. TheRMI team remains in Rwanda to help governmentand the private sector fit those recommendationsinto the nation’s evolving energy system.

“A big part of the work we’re doing in Rwandaand elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa is all abouthelping investors and companies like EarthSparkclearly articulate the minigrid value proposition inthe context of a host of electrification options toensure that the capital that is put against the prob-lem delivers the most impact,” says Wanless.

Promoting economic developmentResidents of Les Anglais not only have access to

reliable power 24 hours a day, but are also savingmoney on their energy expenses. Before themicrogrid, they were spending about $10 to $12each month for kerosene and spending $3 to $4each month to charge phones (at nearly $0.25 percharge). Now residential microgrid customers aresaving 80 percent of their household energybudget, paying about $2 to $3 per month for muchbetter quality power. And EarthSpark’s larger busi-ness customers are saving 50 percent over whatthey were spending on diesel.

EarthSpark’s goal is to build 80 microgrids inthe next five years, bringing power to over 200,000people, a small dent in the 7 million Haitians stillliving without access to electricity. But for those200,000 people, it’s a game changer. “We havesmall enterprises using electricity for the first time,people starting new businesses. The carpenter nowhas power tools. The hotel and the mill have beenable to drastically reduce their power bills, by swit-ching off their big diesel generators. And people

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come up to me and tell me their children no longerhave the smoke of kerosene burn their eyes whenthey’re studying,” says Archambault. EarthSpark’sproject in Haiti and RMI’s work in Sub-SaharanAfrica are delivering clean reliable electricity topeople and unlocking huge opportunities for ruralcommunities around the world.

Laurie Guevara-Stone is the Writer/Editor forRocky Mountain Institute (RMI).

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Declan Murray

Designing (for) solar waste from Nairobi

olar waste is not as present in Nairobi as inthe rural regions of Kenya yet it is here and itis here in the capital, that distributors, finan-

ciers, government and manufacturers make thedecisions that have real consequences for the enduser at the end-of-life. If there is one thing to takeaway from this post it is that waste is everywhere,even in smart office-blocks.

When I am describing my research to peoplethey, or I, sometimes use the term ‘end-of-life’. It iscommon, not just in my focus area of the off-gridsolar industry, to think of waste as being some-thing that occurs at the end, when we throw awaya used product; when our phone no longer makescalls or our kettle no longer boils water. In this postI want to show that when dealing with waste weshouldn’t just be looking at the end, at the personwho disposes it but at the people who financed it,designed it, sold it, even distributed it, as they arethe ones defining and designing that waste in addi-tion to generating it themselves.

This post then, a summary of my latest field-work stint: the last three months in Nairobi, looksat how financiers, manufacturers and regulatorsgenerate waste and determine that which is gene-rated by the end users.

The aim of the stint was to capture what I callthe ‘high-level’ perspective. That is that when I’vebeen visiting users at home, retailers in their shopsor mafundi in their workshops I have been consci-ous that all of those groups’ actions and under-standings have been shaped by decisions madeearlier, or higher up, the chain. For instance a user

might not take a broken product to a fundi becau-se they were told not to by the sales agent, or aretailer selling multiple brands might not remem-ber what the warranty process is for each particu-lar one or further still a fundi might not be able tofix a broken product because of the way it hasbeen assembled.

The rest of this post is structured around thethree groups I have been speaking to: manufac-turers and distributors, banks and micro-financeinstitutions and government/regulatory organisa-tions.

The makers and shifters

This is a d.light warranty card. I found it in a boxof returned products sent to the Greenlight Planetoffices. To me it symbolises a second key idea ofthis post: that just because a system is in place itdoes not mean it is followed. This customer got

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further than most as they have filled out theirwarranty card, but unfortunately it has ended upat the wrong company – will Greenlight, in oneNairobi neighbourhood, now deliver this card tod.light up the road? I was told not. As for whatbecame of Teresa’s product: Is it still with her?Is itsitting (with some sister solar waste) unidentifiedin a box at d.light without its warranty card?Maybewe will never know.

Most of the manufacturers and distributors Ispoke to do offer a warranty on their products.That warranty varies. It can vary in length between1 and 2 years or in what it covers; some offer aseparate warranty on the battery from the rest ofthe product or system. Further variance is found inhow that warranty is activated; be it pen and paperas shown here, an SMS/USSD system or scanning abarcode upon purchase. When it came to actualuse of these warranties though, the manufacturersand distributors I spoke to showed more consis-tency.

“You can’t always guarantee that the customerwill activate the warranty which is actually whywe’ve tied the, we’ve now tied a monetary incenti-ve to activate the warranty, which is a new promo-tion that we’re running, with the idea that we canincrease warranty activations through you get 20shillings if you register your [product]..”

These words of one Country Director echoedthat of those I spoke to at other companies. War-ranties are there then, but whether they are work-ing is another question.

The ones with the dosh

This sign is in the lobby of the building where Ifound Teresa’s warranty card. Somewhat ironicallythe warranty card (above) was in a box that had

been sent from One Acre Fund (4th Floor) whofinance both d.light and Greenlight Planet pro-ducts. I haven’t interviewed One Acre Fund as theyare not currently operating in my main field site ofBomet. Juhudi Kilimo however (2nd Floor), are, andthey, like Family and Equity Banks, explicitly men-tioned after-sales as a component of their ‘duediligence’ process when deciding which manufac-turers to partner with.

“We have selected these companies based ontheir warranty programmes and after-sales sup-port, after-sales support…It was an, it was an ela-borate 13 page document that allows us to see thisis a company that, you know, is able to, you know,offer support, especially in terms of honouringwarranties”

In general, finance actors see the after-salessuite of business activities as the responsibility ofthe companies. However, they are playing an acti-ve role in those activities especially given the rangeand changing nature of sales models adopted bythe manufacturers themselves; these range fromthose who have their own branded shops or ser-vice centres in the village, through to roamingagents, freelance agents, or even having NO in-country representative. Very often, where there isno permanent presence, the bank or MFI is betterknown and more accessible to the customer thanthe solar company. An example of this would beMogogosiek in Bomet County where a two yearpartnership between the Kenya Tea DevelopmentAgency (KTDA) and Barefoot Power saw a shop setup in town as a sales and service centre. Since theproject wound up in 2015 (and the shop closed)many of its beneficiaries have been approachingKTDA (the finance partner) for technical assistancewith their waste products. Although financiersmight regard their job as done when the paymentis completed (a moment which usually coincideswith the warranty period) their age, profile andpresence means they are involved in these end-of-life issues too.

Departments, institutes and associations

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This is KIRDI, the Kenya Industrial Research andDevelopment Institute. The Institute is based in thesouth of Nairobi on the edge of the city’s mainindustrial district.I wanted to upload this picturehere as I was struck whilst cycling around Nairobiconducting these interviews by two questions: oneof geography and another of atmosphere.

On the geographic question I noted that all thesolar companies were situated in a couple ofwealthier, largely expatriate-populated areas in thewest of the city, while the more peripheral regula-tory groups are based in the south with the financeorganisations found closer to the city centre.Ofcourse, this urban geography is nothing unique toNairobi or the solar sector but what it did do wasget me thinking about positioning.Although thelikes of KIRDI, or the Ministry of Energy and Petro-leum or the Kenya Renewable Energy Association(KEREA) are national bodies, the way and fre-quency with which they referred to internationalactors like the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association(GOGLA) or the World Bank and International Fi-nance Corporation (IFC) made them feel more likethe Kenyan branches of a broader multinational.

This then manifests itself in terms of atmosphe-re at these ‘national’ bodies.It felt like their job isto enact an agenda imposed from above; creatingan enabling environment, removing barriers andopening the market.One employee at the EnergyRegulatory Commission (ERC) spoke as follows:

“also there are a number of financiers, forexample World Bank, financiers, who want to ven-ture in to that space by providing financing for thedifferent investors, but now they, they can’t do thatbecause they fear there are no regulations in thatin that area, in fact we just had a meeting lastweek, where where they really wanted to know,what’s our role, in regards to the smaller smaller

systems, because it’s like they are looking at provi-ding solutions in the off-grid counties, there are 12counties…that they have already identified, butnow without regulation, them giving finances nowbecomes a challenge.”

Where’s the waste you ask?Well several inter-viewees in this group had demonstration or marke-ting stock sat in their office given to them by thesame international (foreign) companies and orga-nisations apparently governing the sector.

Three months, three messages1. Waste is everywhere2. Systems do not equate to action3. The Kenyan solar industry is not all that Ken-

yanIt appears that the ‘high level’ in Nairobi runs

even higher than I might have first thought.Acrossall three groups, the interviews and what was dis-cussed felt much closer linked to each other and tothe international context than the local settingwhere the rest of my fieldwork has been conduc-ted.After-sales seems so far to be limited to war-ranty.The focus instead, is on growing this market,selling more and impacting more lives.Not badthings, I just wonder if in prioritising product quali-ty (brightness and capacity) over service quality thesector is running the age old risk of putting techno-logy ahead of the people it is supposed to serve.

Declan Murray is International Development PhDcandidate at University of Edinburgh, School ofSocial and Political Science.

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Sutapa Deb

India matters: Solar revolution in Uttar Pradesh

n Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh, private dieselgenerators power the rural economy. Noisy,polluting and expensive. The state electricity

grid has reached some areas, but there is a chronicshortage of power. Those with connections getonly a few hours of supply in a day and almostnever during peak hours. Businessman PradeepKumar Shukla had to produce his own electricitywhen he set up a petrol pump near Pipargaonvillage. The village is 110 km from Lucknow. "Whenwe started the petrol pump, there were so manypower cuts that we had to totally depend on gene-rator sets. These filling machines are computerisedand cannot be operated manually. It cost Rs. 1.25lakh to install the generator and we spent an addi-tional Rs. 18,000 a month to run it," Mr ShuklaSaid.

Most of the 60 odd branches of Grameen Bankof Aryavrat in the district depend on diesel power.As do telecom towers, hospitals, colleges, smallshops and other businesses.

But now that is changing. Companies based onrenewable energy are bringing in a clean and reli-able solution to these remote villages. One of the-se companies is Omnigrid Micropower Company orOMC. Founded by three former Ericson employees,OMC set up its first solar power plant in Jangaonvillage in Hardoi district three years ago. They re-ceived an overwhelming response and today theyhave 70 plants in Uttar Pradesh. Each plant has acapacity between 50 and 100 kw and each has agrid about one to 5 km long.

At the Pipargaon plant, we meet Rohit Chandra,Managing Director, OMC. He says the plant was

commissioned eight months ago. "This place wastaken on lease. The size of the plot will be about900 sq m on an average and the technology hasadvanced so much that you can package a lot ofsolar power in a panel these days, which meansyou'll require a smaller footprint. So, a size like thisis good enough to take you to about 100 kilo watts.We have a large storage bank here where we storepower. And every of the plant has about 300 amphour of storage. So when the sun goes away in theevening, the batteries are charged and able to giveenergy after sunset. From here the energy goesinto inverters and rectifiers and is pumped on a24X7 basis. The inverters are used for convertingDC to AC to 130 volts," Mr Chandra said.

When this plant's distribution network in-creases, it will cover nearly 2,000 households andsmall businesses. Mr Shukla's petrol pump has anOMC solar power connection. Instead of the Rs.18,000 a month he previously spent on diesel, henow spends only Rs. 4,000. "My electricity problemis fully solved. The company has stuck to its com-mitment of providing 24/7 power supply," he said.

Shri Jagdev Singh Mahavidyalaya, a rural col-lege, draws power from the plant at Attrauli. Stu-dents can now use the computer lab. A shoppingcomplex is coming up near the Attrauli plant. Cent-red around the promise of uninterrupted solarpower supply are ambitious plans to open a cybercafe and tractor agency. The Jangaon branch of theGramin Bank of Aryavrat is also an OMC customer."We now spend around Rs. 3,000 a month. Earlierwe would have to spend nearly Rs. 15,000 on thegenerator. The advantage is there is no noise pollu-

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tion and air pollution," Gramin Bank branch mana-ger Ram Narayan Prajapati said

It all started with what was for OMC a clear bu-siness opportunity. There are nearly 5 lakh telecomtowers in the country.50 per cent of them in ruralareas. Most of them relied 20 hours a day on dieselgenerators. Telecom towers are one of the largestconsumers of diesel in the country, consumingaround 2 billion litres of diesel every year.

OMC entered into an agreement with telecomcompanies, setting up their plants near the tele-com towers to provide them solar power. Telecomtowers no longer have to maintain generators orhire people to run them.

The company calls it an ABC business modelthat is sustainable and scalable. A stands for theanchor load which are the telecom towers, B deno-tes the small and medium enterprises and C is thecommunity, a majority of whom are below thepoverty line. The A and B segments help in givingaffordable services to C. Product packages havebeen designed for each segment in the village.Smart metering allows OMC to prefix loads andtimings. The community pays for the subscriptionin advance. Rs. 110 a month gives them one 7 wattLED light from 5 pm to 11 pm and a mobilecharging socket.

From 24 hour metered supply to the richest in-dividual in the village to bite sized packages for thepoorest consumers, there are packages that arerelevant to each one.

At the busy Attrauli crossing, nearly 40 shopsselling a variety of fruits, medicines, snacks andsweets have lights powered by the OMC grid. Theysaid they would use battery operated lights till theygot the LED lights from OMC that were brighter.Charging the batteries was a challenge.

Near the crossing, we come across three shackslit by LED lights. In one of them 18-year-old Ma-nisha is busy at work on her home science assign-ment. She says she would like to train as a teacherand the lights are helping her to study whenevershe wants. "It's been 3 months since this light wasinstalled. It is now easy to cook food, as well as tostudy. We no longer face any problems," the youngstudent said.

However, there is another contradictory realityof families who live at subsistence level and cannotpay 100 odd rupees a month. At Jangaon village,we meet Nirmala as she cooks the evening meal

using a kerosene lamp. She says they are unable toinstall OMC because there was never any money tospare. They ate only when they earned.

"I have small kids and my husband works as la-bour. We have to buy everything from the marketsince we don't own any land," Nirmala said.

In the next six months, OMC is planning todouble its capacity from 2.5 megawatt to 5 mega-watt, making it one of the largest solar mini gridoperators in the state. Their grid is reaching highdensity areas, where there is economic activity.However, the activity is mainly non-agricultural. Itis expensive to extend the grid to agricultural fieldsthat are usually at a distance from the village andpresently pumps used for irrigation are not beingpowered by OMC. Where the grid does reach,customers can get continuous power supply. Theplants use diesel generators as a backup for thosedays when there is low solar power generation dueto rains or fog.

According to the Ministry of New and Rene-wable Energy (MNRE), the ideal solution is to pro-duce locally and distribute locally. It is extendingsupport to private rural energy service providerslike OMC. According to G Prasad, Director, MNRE,the government is extending a fixed capital subsidywhich is approximately 25 per cent to 30 per centof the total amount. "The remaining equity theyhave to bring on their own, maybe at the commer-cial rate of interest. Since they have to take bankloans, they have to maintain this as a commercialventure. Otherwise they can't survive. After fiveyears they have to replace the battery, they haveto maintain the plant, pay salaries. They have tomake profit as a company. This is the model weenvisage."

OMC is a for profit company with a significantsocial impact. What is interesting is that it is attrac-ting funds from the commercial space as well asthe social impact space.

For instance, Smart Power India, a new non-profit entity set up by the Rockefeller Foundation.With the help of a $75 million grant, it is helpingcompanies such as OMC and others to set up minigrids to serve 1,000 villages in the next three years."The philanthropic capital acts as a catalyst toallow this industry to emerge and sustain itself andyet at the same time allow for it to be a completelycompetitive source of power to go to the commu-nities. It is a capacity enablement entity to provide

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the requisite support to market proponents. It is akind of trying to create a platform in which a widevariety of mini grids can operate," cKinetics Ma-naging Director Upendra Bhatt said.

Private players have shown an increasing inte-rest in solar mini grids in the last 4 years. There aremultiple models operating in the state.

Some offer small solutions like pico grids whichare of less than 1 kilowatt capacity and are usuallyDC systems. Others deploy micro grids which havea capacity between 1 kilowatt and 10 kilowatts.The Boond energy company deploys micro gridswith less than 2 kilowatt capacity. "A 2 kilowattmicrogrid system will electrify 40 to 45 houses andeach house will get 2 to 3 LED lights and 2 plugpoints, one for a mobile and one for any otherappliance. They would get a peak load of 40 watts.Some of our microgrids are owned by anotherperson. We facilitate a bank loan for buying hard-ware as well as software and the person pays theEMI to the bank. So the goal is what he collectsfrom 40 houses. Let us say he collects Rs. 100 from40 houses that Rs. 4,000 should pay off his EMI anda profit for him. We believe that this is a model togrow and it is extremely scalable and it gives inco-me to someone from the community." Boond En-gineering and Development CEO Rustam Senguptasaid.

Another company, Ren-en-gen, has joinedhands with an NGO to launch a 10 kw micro grid inSitapur district. It offers 3 LED lights and a mobilecharging point for Rs. 150 a month. According toRen-en-gen, villagers were earlier using kerosenethat cost them Rs. 250 a month. They also had towalk miles to charge their mobiles, for which theypaid Rs. 10 an hour.

"Ren-en-gen made their own investments, a-long with the NGO, Sankalp Samarpan Samiti, andanother investor, SCT. From the business point ofview, the break-even may come somewherearound the 7th, 8th or 9th year, but what wasimportant was the social impact and how it wouldlead to the growth of the rural economy. Rightfrom the design innovation up to the operation,the plant is maintained by Ren-en-gen. At the sametime what we did was train 3 local guys to handlethe maintenance and daily collection from villa-gers," Ren-en-gen Solutions Chairman Santosh KLalwani said. In Kannauj district, the state govern-ment has set up a 250 kw solar mini grid to power

villages. It is able to run flour mills and agriculturalpumps. However, a key challenge for governmentowned projects is long term operation and main-tenance by the contractor. The tariffs charged arelow and unviable and the contractor does notsustain interest in the project.

For private rural energy service providers, whowant to run a professional operation, the absenceof a national or state level policy on mini gridsleads to uncertainty. A 50 kw solar plant with adistribution grid can cost up to Rs. 1 crore. Sincemini grids are not viewed as infrastructure, longtenure financing is a big challenge. If and whenbanks extend loans, they do so at high commerciallending rates. There is no tariff parity between minigrids and central grids. Central grid consumers geta host of hidden subsidies that make tariffs lowerfor them. The sector needs a great deal of invest-ment and for investors to come in the stategovernment needs to come out with a clear cutpolicy on mini grids. For one, there is no clear di-rection regarding the government's electrificationprogramme.

According to Debajit Palit, Associate Director,TERI, "So you set up mini grids in rural areas, andtomorrow the central grid extends to those areas.How do you interconnect your mini grid to themain grid and feed power to the main grid at apower purchase agreement? Or take power fromthe main grid in case there is a deficit from yourmini grid system? There is still lack of clarity onhow to do that in terms of both the technicalconsideration and also in terms of a proper exitmechanism for the mini grid developer. I thinkthese are some of the challenges which are notallowing the scaling up of mini grids in India eventhough India has a huge potential for mini grids."

To promote greater private investment in thissector, the Uttar Pradesh government is comingout with a comprehensive mini grid policy. It willbe the first state to do so. According to Parth SarthiSen Sharma, Secretary, Non-Conventional Energyand Secretary to the Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh,"One of the challenges is to balance the interest ofthe consumers and the interest of the investor.One challenge would be if the grid comes withsufficient number of hours of electricity and thevillagers are no longer wanting this investor's microgrid, then what kind of comfort can be given to theinvestor? How do we select the investors? There

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may be some villages in which it is just not com-mercially viable. In that case, how is the viabilitygap to be met by the Government? And if we aremeeting the viability gap, we need to have a trans-parent system in place to select the investors.

Mr Sen Sharma also struck a note of caution,saying, "Whenever we are talking about increasingthe share of alternative energy, and this is a wor-ldwide discussion, the two major points in my mindis still the difference between the price of conven-tional and non-conventional energy and the gridstability. Alternative power typically requires somehours of production and some hours of non-production. Therefore, we can go up to a particularlimit, but we cannot wish away conventionalpower. That will remain the mainstay in my opini-on."

Mini grid proponents believe this could be theview in the rearview mirror. But for those lookingahead, the picture is different. A renewable energyecosystem is emerging even as Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has announced the installation of100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022. Innovativebusiness models will lead to increase in scale andwith the development of technology, solar energyis likely to become cheaper. The technology isrobust and allows it to be integrated to the centralgrid based on conventional energy. With the sup-port of an enabling policy, mini grids may be thebest way to reach the over 300 million people inthe country who are waiting for power.

Sutapa Deb is an Indian television journalist.

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Business Call to Action

Bangladesh: Access to clean water and job creation fordisadvantaged youth through solar power

atersprint, the Sweden-based environ-mental technology company, has joinedthe Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a

commitment to provide 50,000 people in Bangla-desh with access to safe and clean drinking waterby 2020.To support this effort, the company will providetraining and employment to 500 disadvantagedBangladeshi youth.

While lack of access to clean, safe drinking wa-ter is a global problem, Bangladesh is particularlyhard hit. According to the World Health Organiza-tion, high levels of arsenic in the country’sgroundwater – principally due to the arsenic-richrocks through which the water is filtered – haveaffected nearly 35 million people in Bangladeshand contribute to 1 out of 5 deaths – the largestmass poisoning in history. Treating the country’sgroundwater would require a massive investmentin infrastructure.

At the same time, surface water sources suchlakes, rivers and ponds are rife with bacteria andviruses, contributing to illness and deaths. Diarr-heal disease is Bangladesh’s biggest killer, contri-buting to 62 out of every 1,000 deaths in childrenunder five each year. Tackling surface impurities,however, does not require the same level of infra-structure investment.

Watersprint’s unique UV-LED technology is ableto remove bacteria and viruses from water withvery low energy consumption: the unit can run on

just 12 volts from a solar panel or battery. Thistechnology was already on the market in Swedenfor use in showers for water disinfection and legio-nella, when it caught the attention of Nobel Laure-ate Muhammad Yunus. At his urging, the companydeveloped the Watersprint product to clean bacte-ria and viruses from surface water, and is workingwith the Yunus Center in Bangladesh to train andemploy young people as distributors. Ten of Wa-tersprint’s portable Micro Production Centers(MPCs) were installed in and around Dhaka in2015.

“With this new technology, we will takeanother important step towards sustainable accessto safe drinking water in developing countries”,said Anders Ruland, Watersprint’s Chief ExecutiveOfficer.

“For the first time, a water solution can be setup and operated without a great deal of complexi-ty or high cost. Empowering youth through inco-me-earning opportunities is a key component ofour inclusive business model and we are pleased tobe acknowledged by BCtA for our work.”

Watersprint believes its inclusive business mo-del, which combines access to affordable, safedrinking water with training for youth as distribu-tors, is highly scalable. The company plans to ex-pand the same inclusive business model to threeadditional countries by 2030.

“Watersprint’s inclusive business model is anexcellent example of the private sector’s unique

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ability address a market need – in this case safe,affordable water – while meeting long-term deve-lopment needs such as youth employment andenvironmental sustainability,” said Sahba Sobhani,BCtA’s Acting Project Manager. “We are pleased towelcome Watersprint as a BCTA member and lookforward to the company’s continued growth.”

"Business Call to Action" aims to accelerate pro-gress towards the Sustainable Development Goalsby challenging companies to develop inclusivebusiness models that engage people at the base ofthe economic pyramid.

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Kristin Lau

Light for life: Nepal solar farming

nergy is at the forefront of most economic,environmental and developmental issues theworld faces today. In Nepal, roughly 80% of

the population lives in rural mountainous regionsthat lack access to reliable electricity. Solar integra-tion for agricultural purposes has been implemen-ted throughout various parts of rural Nepal to aidin irrigation and agricultural needs all year round.

The remaining population of Nepal is grid-connected, but face a 500 MW energy deficit, with16+ hours of daily blackouts on average duringload shedding hours. Many businesses run pri-vately owned diesel generators for backup, but stillsuffer from increasing fuel costs, frequent shorta-ges, and pollution from fumes and noise. In thecurrent situation, local businesses have beenforced to shut down and are actively seeking outclean, reliable and alternative energy solutions.Solar energy has become a very feasible and viableanswer to power Nepal and provide a path towa-rds energy independence.

Farmer Dilli Ram Regmi, 65 years old, lives inthe farming village of Jharlyangdi in Walling,Syangja District. He’s been a farmer since the ageof 16 and grew up working in agriculture. There are12 members in his family and they depend onagriculture to make a living. Dilli Ram saw a lack ofwater in his community and shared his concernwith the Syangja Agricultural Committee. With thehelp of local and international charitable organiza-tions, iDE Nepal, Renewable World and SunFarmer,a Solar water MUS (Multiple Use System) was im-plemented in December 2012 and completed

within two months. His community uses a solarpowered water pump that lifts water from thevalley below to a tank above the community on ahill. Access to 16 water distribution taps standoutside the 32 households in the community andprovides water for drinking and irrigation givingDilli Ram and his family back time they wouldotherwise use for collecting water.

Renewable World and iDE Nepal, describes aSolar MUS (Multi Use Water System) as an impro-ved approach to water resource management forsmall communities to meet both domestic andagricultural needs. The Solar MUS system providesthe farmers in Syangja with a 15,000 Litre storagetank. During the dry season, there is a scarcity ofwater and with a second storage tank, the farmerswould have the opportunity to irrigate an additio-nal area of 520 sq. meters of land. The land inSirubari is ideal for vegetable farming, but cur-rently there is only enough water for drinking andlivestock. Traditionally, the land was able to growmillet, corn, rice, and vegetables including tomato-es, cauliflower, cabbage and radish.

Nepal continues to rebuild with reliable energytechnology that is clean, efficient and affordable.Access to reliable energy is fundamental to a mo-dern quality of life for its citizens and the country’sglobal prosperity.

Kristin Lau is a Toronto-based photojournalist fromQueens, New York.

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Lauren Braniff

Building a digital finance ecosystem in Zimbabwe

here’s a familiar story rolling out across Afri-ca (and around the world): mobile moneyservices launch, millions register for the

service, but few become active users.Of those who are active, close to 90 percent of

those transactions are airtime top-ups or person-to-person transfers, falling short of true financialinclusion.

Coupled with declining voice revenues, mobileoperators are increasingly looking toward a nextgeneration of financial and non-financial servicesthat leverage mobile money.

In many countries, mobile operators havefocused their diversification efforts on a relativelypredictable progression of products: airtimetopups and P2P, bill payments, payroll and bulkpayments, linking to banks, merchant payments,and perhaps international remittances. In Zimbab-we, the leading mobile operator, Econet, hasfollowed a similar pattern, but what sets themapart is their parallel efforts to drive mobile moneyusage in other sectors, including energy, educati-on, agriculture, and health.

Another unique factor is that innovation untilrecently has largely been driven from within thecompany rather than through outside players. TheEcoCash motto “Live life the EcoCash way” provi-des a hint at the company’s ambitions to touch onalmost every aspect of their customers’ lives, withEcoCash as the payment mechanism at the core.Econet has taken on the role of building out anentire ecosystem of services that are meant toboth improve the lives of their customers while

also generating transaction volume for their mobi-le money service.

Sample ProductsEconet Solar: With only 40% of the population

having access to on-grid electricity, there is signifi-cant latent demand for household power in Zim-babwe. Econet Solar offers solar lanterns and ahome power station, available with short-termfinancing from Econet, with payments made viaEcoCash.

EcoSchool: EcoSchool offers zero-rated accessto digital content for tertiary students in Zimbab-we. Students access digital books, e-courses, mobi-le courses and job alerts via a web-based platformat a fraction of the cost.

EcoFarmer: EcoFarmer provides a range of ser-vices to the large number of agricultural house-holds in Zimbabwe. What began as an informationservice has evolved into a program offering insu-rance, savings products, loans and other valuableservices to 700,000 subscribers in the farmingcommunity.

Ruzivo: Ruzivo is a digital learning platform forprimary and secondary school students. The ser-vice was developed to compliment the govern-ment’s efforts to improve the national pass rates inZimbabwe. By making content accessible at anaffordable rate of US$ 2 per month, Ruzivo aims toreach all of Zimbabwe’s 3.6 million primary andsecondary school learners.

While many mobile operators around the world

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are feeling the pressure to expand mobile moneyuse, few, if any, have directly entered into othersectors in the manner that Econet has. Why hasEconet taken this direct intervention approach?

First, their market dominance provided themwith the brand recognition and resources to testand roll out products more quickly than otherplayers. Under pressure to increase the volume ofEcoCash transactions, the fastest path was to do itthemselves.

Second, the startup community in Zimbabwe isjust getting its legs. A number of incubators andhubs now exist and are fostering a new era oftechnological innovation in Zimbabwe. But just afew years ago this wasn’t the case and innovationwas driven from within Econet and other largecorporations. Today, Econet is a supporter of onesuch incubator and involved in holding hackathonsand contests to find their next big ideas. Openingtheir doors to this community of innovators willlikely generate many more innovate products andmobile money use cases than would be possible in-house.

Third, and related to the second, is the issue ofApplication Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIsfacilitate communication between two softwareprograms, and are an important ingredient in thegrowth of products and services that use mobilemoney. Econet has opened their API to a group ofpartners and aggregators, enabling connections toseveral online merchants, e-commerce sites, utilitycompanies, and remittances partners. In a similarfashion, Safaricom recently began opening access

to their APIs in Kenya. Start-ups are calling for evenmore openness from mobile money operators, soperhaps this is the beginning of a trend towardmore open systems which will support furtherinnovation.

Econet’s focus on the development of EcoCashseem to be paying off. Econet Services, a divisionof Econet established to manage EcoCash and theother overlay services, contributed 11% to overallrevenue in the first half of 2015, up from 7% in thesame period the previous year. Despite this suc-cess, however, not all of their new business lineshave taken off at scale. Difficult economic conditi-ons have crippled Econet’s ability to offer productson longer-term credit, a critical ingredient for thesuccess of similar products in other markets.

But there’s reason to remain optimistic.Emerging solutions, such as a solar power unit orclean water solution that one can pay off in smallamounts over time or an education savings pro-duct that balances discipline and flexibility, are thetype of real-life applications customers want. Con-tinued innovation, openness to partnerships, andaccess to APIs will drive the future of mobile mo-ney and transition it from an airtime top-up serviceto an enabler of products and services that trans-form lives for the better.

Lauren Braniff is a consultant working with CGAP.

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Sally Bolton

Going off-grid in Timor Leste

lashback to early 2011: the Arab Spring wasspreading across the Middle East andnorthern Africa, the hunt was still on for

Osama bin Laden, and a massive earthquake andtsunami devastated Japan. At the time, I was onlyvaguely aware of these events, because I was livingin remote Timor-Leste, with almost no access tonews media. Pop culture had, however, reachedus, albeit a little behind the rest of the world, and Iwas being woken each morning by Justin Bieber’sBaby. Not by choice, but because my neighbours’kids delighted in belting it out at every opportuni-ty.

Even now, any time I hear Baby, it takes mestraight back to my time in Timor-Leste as a Koper-nik Fellow. My mission: to help Kopernik’s localpartners to distribute solar lights, water purifiers,clean cookstoves and rolling water drums — and toevaluate the impact these simple technologieswere making on people’s lives. Over six months wecontended with raging rivers, crumbling roads, abroken ferry, and a fuel shortage, as we worked toreach coastal and mountain villages in one of thepoorest regions of southeast Asia.

This past February I returned to Timor-Lesteand visited Atauro, a small island 25km north ofDili, where Kopernik has worked with local part-ners since 2011 to distribute a range of technolo-gies. Three coastal villages on the eastern side ofAtauro have access to electricity for 12 hours eachnight. Unless the ferry breaks down and is unableto bring fuel for the island’s generator — in whichcase the hours of electricity are reduced as fuel is

rationed, as had happened in the three weeks priorto my visit.

Electricity is yet to reach the other villages onthe island, but fortunately, solar lights have,through Kopernik’s Light Up Atauro, Switch onAtauro and Lights for a Brighter Future projects.Everyone I spoke to on the island was very enthu-siastic about the lights. “You see them everywhere,up in the mountains,” said Mario, who runs a simp-le eco-lodge in Adara, on the more remote, wes-tern side of the island. “People love the d.lights,because they’re just so easy,” Mario told me.“Great!” I responded, “let’s go find them!”. Towhich Mario laughed nervously, as he explainedthat the only vehicle on the island able to get upinto the mountains had just been rented byanother group for the next three days.

“No worries, we can hike up to Makadade!” Isaid enthusiastically. Mario dubiously eyed thegathering storm clouds and suggested hiking upthe steep slopes — which rise to almost 1,000 met-res at the island’s highest point — during a torren-tial downpour might not be the best idea. I hadforgotten how much life is ruled by the weatherduring the wet season in Timor-Leste.

As a Kopernik Fellow, blessed with the luxury oftime, I would have waited out the rain until a clearday dawned and it was safe to venture up into themountains. Constrained by time, I instead met withMana Neka from Move Forward, our local partnerin Bikeli village. Working with Move Forward ( andanother partner, Roman Luan), we distributed two‘generations’ of d.light solar lanterns on Atauro:

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the older generations (S10 & S250 models) have abattery life of around two years, while the newergeneration (S20 & S300) have improved batteriesexpected to last more than five years.

Mana Neka said that the batteries have startedto fail on some of the older lights, but the newerlights are in good working order. There have beenproblems with rats chewing through the solar pa-nel cord, in which case neighbours have been sha-ring one panel between two solar lights — chargingone light for six hours in the morning and the otherlight for six hours in the afternoon. Sharing is ca-ring, and in another example of this, families inBikeli village — which is connected to the island’selectricity grid — have been lending their solarlights to relatives who live in villages without ac-cess to electricity. However, when there is noelectricity in Bikeli, people reclaim their solarlights!

I also talked with Obadias, Mana Neka’s hus-band, who has become a Mr Fix-It for solar lights inBikeli, helping people troubleshoot problems andfind solutions. For example, if a fisherman dropshis solar lantern in the sea, the salt water will cor-rode the inner circuitry, causing the light to stopworking within a week. However, Obadias hasfigured out that if you immediately pull the solarlantern apart and rub cooking oil over the compo-nents, you can stop the salt water from damagingthe light, and it will continue to work. Obadias alsohelps people identify problems with non-functioning lanterns, for example switching out thebattery to check if the problem lies with the bat-tery or with another component of the lantern. Hesaid that when he visits other villages, he alwaysreminds people to clean their solar panels, to en-sure they charge effectively. To quote Daniel, Ko-pernik’s current Engineering Fellow, Obadias is agenius for figuring this all out for himself, withoutany formal training in how solar lights work.

Solar technology is not entirely new on Atau-ro — there are in fact solar panels dating back tothe 1990s which are still being used on the island.This is a little unusual, as in other parts of Timor-Leste so much was destroyed in the aftermath ofthe 1999 referendum for independence. Isolatedfrom mainland Timor, Atauro escaped this destruc-tion, and offered a safe haven for families fleeingthe violence in Dili. Larger solar panels are beingused by businesses and institutions on Atauro

which need electricity during the day, to powertools and laptops for example, or who need a reli-able nighttime source of electricity. Barry, whoruns an eco-lodge in Beloi village, said the cost ofsolar panels has come down dramatically since hefirst came to Timor-Leste more than a decadeago — dropping from around US$600 for an 80Wpanel, to now around US$1/W. But the challenge isfinding reliable batteries to use with the panels — Barry said that the batteries available in Dili arepretty poor quality, and need to be replaced fre-quently.

And this is where the advantage lies in simplesolar lanterns like d.lights to meet basic lightingneeds — they are just so easy to use and maintain,very reliable, and backed by a warranty if faults doarise. There is no doubt in my mind that thesesolar lanterns are making life easier for peopleliving without access to electricity on Atauro. Thechallenge continues to be how to establish asustainable supply chain to allow people to replacetheir solar lanterns when the batteries reach theend of their lifespan, or to buy additional lanterns,or upgrade to a solar home system, or to allownew customers to buy their first solar lantern andtake their first step up the much vaunted ‘solarladder’. Capacity and willingness to pay for thesolar lanterns were big challenges in the imple-mentation of our solar projects on Atauro.

Mana Neka said that a man recently visitedMove Forward from a village where they intro-duced the solar lanterns several years ago, butwere not able to convert interest into sales. Hecame in ready to buy six solar lanterns for his vil-lage, with the cash to pay for them outright, butunfortunately Move Forward no longer had anyd.lights available.

It seems like an extremely long purchase fun-nel — the customer journey through awareness,interest, desire, and action — but the solar lanternsare a significant outlay for families with very lowcash income. Perhaps that’s just how long somepeople need to trust the technology, understandthat it is a wise investment, and save the money tobe able to make the purchase. But it’s a timeframethat is unlikely to attract commercial interest insolar light distribution on Atauro — especially asmarket opportunities can change dramaticallywhen the government commits to expandingelectricity access. There is talk of connecting the

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island to the country’s electricity grid via an un-derwater cable. The political will to develop Ataurodoes not seem to be there yet, but who knowswhat will happen as a result of next year’s nationalelections.

One big development since my last visit is theintroduction of competition to the telecommunica-tions market in Timor-Leste. Breaking Timor Tele-com’s monopoly, telcom companies from Indone-sia and Vietnam have helped to drive down theprice of phone calls, SMS and mobile data signifi-cantly, and coverage seems to have improvedconsiderably too. This must be making life easier inso many ways, allowing families to stay in touchand making work easier too. If I was still in remoteTimor-Leste, I would have no excuse for not being

up-to-date on important world events — or at leaston the latest Justin Bieber album.

It turns out a lot can change in five years, but alot can stay the same too. Across Timor-Leste, a lotmore people now have access to electricity, whichis certainly a promising development. Yet, on Atau-ro Island, solar technology continues to serve acrucial need for safe, clean, bright light at night.

Sally Bolton leads the communications team atNGO Kopernik.

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Tonderayi Mukeredzi

What's holding back off-grid renewable energyin Zimbabwe?

imbabwe has enormous potential to adoptrenewable energy technologies, its govern-ment and experts say. Solar is particularly

promising, and could supply 10,000 gigawatt hoursof electricity per year - more than the country’scurrent total power production - if the fundingwere available to fully exploit it.

But as a discussion heard in Harare last month,the renewable energy market is littered with struc-tural pitfalls. These may hamper the developmentof off-grid power, increasingly styled as the qui-ckest and cheapest way to get clean energy tomillions of poor people without electricity.

Here are some of the potential problems identi-fied at the energy discussion involving governmentofficials, businesses and sustainable energy groups:

Policy gapsThe government has committed to provide an

adequate and sustainable energy supply throughformulating an effective regulatory framework andpolicies, and promoting greater use of new energysources. But the environment is not yet conduciveto a renewable energy revolution.

While the National Electricity Act of 2002 ope-ned up the energy sector to independent players,and an Energy Policy was enacted in 2012, thecountry lacks a specific policy for renewable ener-gy.

Sosten Ziuku, director of renewable energy inthe Ministry of Energy and Power Development,

said the government is still developing many of thecritical policies that will catalyse renewable energyuse. A Renewable Energy Policy is expected byyear-end.

Other key policies on biofuels and feed-in ta-riffs, a renewables “readiness assessment”, a ruralenergy master plan and an energy systems develo-pment plan are all at various stages of drafting.

But even with the energy policy that is in place,implementation is lagging, Ziuku said.

“We have also observed that there are no spe-cific long-term targets, clear action plans, timeli-nes, and implementation strategies for renewableenergy,” he told the discussion. “More im-portantly, we don’t have reporting, monitoring,and evaluation frameworks to guide progress.”

FinanceAccess to finance is another major impediment,

with a lack of adequate financing models to pro-mote the uptake of renewable energy technolo-gies.

Much can be learned from affordable pay-as-you-go systems championed by the private sectorand non-governmental organisations. But energyaccess experts say other financing channels forsolar systems - such as mobile payment systemsand micro-loans for clean energy investments - arelimited.

On top of this, Fungai Matura, an energy expertwith SNV Zimbabwe, said skepticism is high among

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local financiers towards backing solar projects.William Ponnela, chief executive of solar pro-

ducts firm Zonful Energy, identified the lack offinance as a major bottleneck for consumers anddistributors, with many manufacturers demandingcash up-front and companies selling products forhigh prices.

While solar products are duty-free, the countrydoes not have fiscal incentives in place for inves-tors, such as feed-in tariffs, tax rebates and rene-wable energy certificates, which have proven to bekey drivers of renewables in European markets.

And in general, Zimbabwe has a high politicalrisk profile, which makes it an unattractive destina-tion for foreign energy funding.

Ziuku said that without clear tariff structuresfor grid-connected green projects, conflict waslikely between private players and the ZimbabweEnergy Supply Authority (ZESA), which owns thegrid and is also a competitor.

Power Purchase Agreements between ZESAand independent power producers need to beclear, he added.

At least 23 independent producers have beenlicensed, but most of their projects have yet tostart owing to financial difficulties.

Quality controlWithout standards and guarantees for most

imported solar technologies, the energy market islargely unregulated, resulting in the importation ofsubstandard products.

The high failure rate of imported technologyhas choked off the solar market but trust in thetechnology is rebuilding, Ponnela said.

The market lacks skilled installers, with the ma-jority of electricians claiming to be solar installerswithout proper training, he added. Meanwhile,after-sale service for solar is virtually non-existent.

The Standards Association of Zimbabwe andthe Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA)are still drafting many of the required solar stan-dards, including regulations for solar water hea-

ters, lighting products, the solar PV industry andenergy management.

ZERA’s director of renewable energy, TobiasMudzingwa, said the authority is building a dedica-ted solar PV equipment testing laboratory whichwould check components such as solar modules,batteries, charge controllers and inverters. It is alsofunding the establishment of a test centre for solarthermal systems.

Strategies for off-grid powerOrganisations working to boost access to ener-

gy say that for off-grid systems to work effectively,forthcoming policies must include targets, milesto-nes, and monitoring and evaluation protocols forall types of renewable energy.

They are also calling for mandatory standardsfor solar components and installations, as well asenforcement mechanisms for warranties and gua-rantees to safeguard consumers.

Also critical are the promotion of viable busi-ness models, fiscal incentives, ease of doing ofbusiness, and help for suppliers to offer the righttechnologies to the market, they say.

Chiedza Mazaiwana, Power for All Campaignspokesperson in Zimbabwe, said the campaign isbuilding government capacity to develop policyand regulatory frameworks that can promote ac-celerated growth of the off-grid renewables mar-ket.

It is also supporting business and civil society toadopt affordable business models to speed up thedeployment of decentralised renewables, andworking with the media to increase public awaren-ess of their efficacy.

Tonderayi Mukeredzi is a freelance contributor tothe Thomson Reuters Foundation, based in Zimba-bwe.

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Maarten Kleijn and Edouard Fagnon

Bright lights for Benin: Market introduction ofPay-as-you-go solar

n Benin most people in rural areas are notconnected to the electricity grid and depend onlanterns which run on dirty and costly kerosene

or short-lasting battery powered lanterns forlighting. They also spend a significant amount ofmoney on charging their phones at local kiosks(FCFA 550 – or around USD 1 – per week, accordingto our research). Solar lanterns with phonecharging capabilities could be an ideal replacementfor these energy needs. We discovered this fromspeaking with many rural households in Beninduring a previous solar project and finding thatdemand for such products is high. Greenlight Pla-net's Sun King products were especially popular,but potential customers did not have the cashavailable to pay for these products up front andsaid they would prefer paying in instalments.

Introducing Pay-as-you-go solar productsThrough the Bright Lights for Benin project, we

are introducing Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar lan-terns to the Beninese market for the first time.PAYG allows customers to buy the lantern for asmall down-payment and pay it off in regular in-stalments. If the customer does not pay, the sys-tem is automatically switched off by the manufac-turer. For this project, we brought together one ofthe leading producers of solar lighting products,Greenlight Planet, and a Beninese solar import-supplier, ARESS, to introduce these products to themarket. Greenlight Planet’s Sun King Pro is equip-

ped with Easy Buy, a payment platform tool deve-loped by Angaza, a firm that specialises in develo-ping PAYG capabilities. Through Easy Buy, custo-mers could pay off the system in weekly cash pay-ments to a sales agent.

The next step was to integrate this paymentplatform with the mobile network operator – MTNBenin, so customers could pay installments withtheir mobile phones. This took time, but is now inplace and will allow customers to pay for the lan-terns using mobile money, without having to phy-sically visit the agent after the initial purchase.Once all payments are made over a 24 week peri-od, the lantern is unlocked indefinitely. So far,customers are enthusiastic about the PAYG me-chanism, because it helps them to pay progressi-vely for their solar lanterns. One customer re-marked: ‘I pay for my solar lantern as I buy creditfor my mobile phone.’

Using an existing distribution channelSNV is in partnership with MTN for the project

implementation, following a previous successfuljoint collaboration in the solar sector in Benin.MTN already has a well-established distributionnetwork of agents, to sell phone credit and bankingservices, that penetrates deep into the rural areas.We provided selection, sensitisation and training ofthe MTN agents for the sale of solar and the use ofthe pay-as-you-go mechanism, with the contributi-on of ARESS.

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In the infographic, the distribution model is vi-sualised schematically. Solar manufacturer – Gre-enlight Planet – ships the solar products to solarimport-supplier – ARESS – in Benin and ARESSdistributes the products to local MTN agents. TheMTN agents then sell the solar products to localcustomers enabling them to spread out their pay-ment over a 24-week period.

MTN agents receive FCFA 2,500 (USD 4.30) incommission from ARESS for each lantern sold. Oneof the agents said: ‘ARESS does not have to worryabout the collection of payments; with pay-as-you-go and mobile money payment, the paymentchannel is secure.’ MTN and ARESS also implementmarketing campaigns to make customers aware ofthe benefits of these products; a formal launchwith a press release will occur later in the year.

Pilot phaseFor the pilot phase of the project which ran

from April to June this year, 16 MTN agents wereselected in two off-grid municipalities in the southof Benin. To date, 170 lanterns have been sold bythese agents. The slow start to the pilot taught usan important lesson, namely that the cost of thesolar lantern is a key factor for customer engage-ment in the PAYG mechanism. At first, the pricedifference between a cash and PAYG purchase wastoo high and the repayment period too short.During the evaluation meeting it was decided todouble the repayment time (to 24 weeks) andreduce the total cost of the PAYG payments.Customers now pay FCFA 900 per week (USD 1.50),similar to average weekly household spending onkerosene and phone charging. A new shipment of2,280 brand new lanterns to Benin is currentlyunderway. More than 200 MTN agents have al-ready been selected for the next part of the projectand they are eager to start selling once the solarlanterns arrive.

A unique and solid partnership matrix has beencreated – in which mobile technology plays a cent-ral role – that will provide many rural Beninesewith clean and affordable energy, continuing afterthe project is over.

Maarten Kleijn and Edouard Fagnon are EnergyAdvisors at SNV.

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Appendix

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Authors

Akhtar, Shamshad Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secre-tary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(ESCAP).

Amin , Adnan Z. Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency(IRENA).

Anthes, Daniel Qualified economic geographer, who has worked in the field of natu-ral resource management.

Bahati Wanzala, Justus Freelance contributor for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, based inNairobi.

Bainbridge, Amy ABC's Consumer Affairs Reporter.Bali, Nidhi Engagement Manager at Intellecap (India).

Bhandari, Abhijeet Co-founder & Head-Market Development, GREX.

Bolton, Sally Leads the communications team at NGO Kopernik.Braniff, Lauren Consultant working with CGAP.

Brent, William Currently a director at Power for All.Bressa, Rudi Professional environmental journalist.

Brown, Ann Journalist, working for AFK Insider.

"Business Call to Action" Aims to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable DevelopmentGoals by challenging companies to develop inclusive business modelsthat engage people at the base of the economic pyramid.

Chemnick, Jean International climate policy reporter for E&E News.

Cohen, Bennett Senior investment associate with Shell Technology Ventures andchairman of Empower Generation.

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation,is Australia's national science agency.

Da Silva, Prof. Izael Pereira Director of the Strathmore Energy Research Centre (SERC).Deb, Sutapa Indian television journalist.

Energy 4 Impact Non-profit organisation working with local businesses to extend ac-cess to energy in Africa.

Fagnon, Edouard Energy Advisors at SNV.Farouky, Jumana Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Finestone, Jeanne Works for UNDP.Fleming, Peyton Senior Director at Ceres (US).

Goering, Laurie Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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Guay, Justin Program Officer covering climate at the Packard Foundation.

Gubbins, Paul Leads FSD Kenya's research on consumer insights and digital finance.

Guevara-Stone, Laurie Writer/Editor for Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).Hasnie, Sohail Principal Energy Specialist, Central and West Asia Department, at

ADB.

Herscowitz, Andrew Coordinator for Power Africa (@aherscowitz).

Islam, Rafiqul Freelance contributor to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Kebede, Kassahun Y. (PhD) Researcher and consultant based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is also

an Assistant Professor at Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, AddisAbaba University.

Kleijn, Maarten Energy Advisors at SNV.Klemm, Josh Policy Director at International Rivers.

Koulouris, Christopher Editor in Chief at scallywagandvagabond.com.

Lau, Kristin Toronto-based photojournalist from Queens, New York.Ligami, Christabel Freelance journliast in Nairobi.

Littlefield, Elizabeth L. President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation(OPIC), the development finance institution of the U.S. Government.

Magyari, Szabolcs Research Analyst at SolarPlaza.

Maheshwari, Shweta Works for ONergy (Kolkata)

Makoye, Kizito Freelance correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, basedin Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Mukeredzi, Tonderayi Freelance contributor to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, based inZimbabwe.

Murray, Declan International Development PhD candidate at University of Edinburgh,School of Social and Political Science.

News Ghana Ghana’s leading online news publication for business executives inWest Africa.

Ngalame, Elias Ntungwe Thomson Reuters Foundation.Nixon, Tim Managing Editor of Sustainability at Thomson Reuters.

Njagi, Kagondu Freelance contributor for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, based inNairobi and writing on climate change issues.

Novogratz, Jacqueline Founder and CEO of Acumen.O’Neill, Kathryn M. MITEI correspondent.

Ogbemudia, Godfrey Renewable energy expert.Oleksiw, Zadie Fulbright researcher and clean energy advocate.

Palit, Debajit Associate Director and Senior Fellow at TERI.

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Penar, Peter Researcher and PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science,Michigan State University.

Sanchez, Dana Editor of AFK Insider.

Sarpong, Jon President of PV developer and consultancy Avior Global.Schützeichel, Harald (PhD) Editor of Sun-Connect News.

SciDev.Net A source of news, views and analysis on information about scienceand technology for global development.

Sevea Supports entrepreneurs and organisations to build and scalesustainable solutions leading to social, environmental and economicimpacts.

Shah, Jigar President & Co-Founder of Generate Capital; also Founder of SunEdi-son.

Singh, Kartikeya IDRC Fellow at Center for Global Development.Slater, Victoria Copywriter at QLCredit.

SolarPlaza Global solar energy business portal with worldwide news and infor-mation on photovoltaic products and services.

Tomlinson, Daniel Entrepreneur, author, researcher and expert in energy access.

Tozun, Ned Co-founder and CEO of d.light (US).

Vesper, Inga Global news and features editor at SciDev.Net.Wisenbaker-Scheel, Courtni Author for Home Improvement Leads.

Zollmann, Julie Independent consultant.

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Sources

If clicking the link doesn't work, copy and paste the URL in a new browser window instead.

Akhtar, ShamshadEnergy access and a light-bulb moment: How stronger collaboration on renewables will benefit the Asia-Pacific regionhttp://www.policyforum.net/energy-access-light-bulb-moment/

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Anthes, DanielDevelopment should be about happiness, not GDP growthhttp://thechanger.org/community/development-should-be-about-happiness-not-gdp-growth

Bainbridge, AmyTrading solar-generated power between households to change the way consumers buy electricityhttp://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-17/tesla-trading-solar-generated-power-change-electricity-market/7156934

Bali, NidhiIt’s not off-grid; it is just the smaller grid!http://www.sankalpforum.com/its-not-off-grid-it-is-just-the-smaller-grid/

Bhandari, AbhijeetFund raising challenges faced by start-upshttp://techstory.in/fund-raising-challenges-start-ups/

Bolton, SallyGoing off-grid in Timor Lestehttps://medium.com/kopernik-in-action/going-off-grid-in-timor-leste-f4cd2277ad87#.he3y3st6m

Braniff, LaurenBuilding a digital finance ecosystem in Zimbabwehttp://www.cgap.org/blog/building-digital-finance-ecosystem-zimbabwe?utm_source=Blog+ newslet-ter+3%2F24&utm_campaign=blog_newsletter_032416&utm_medium=email

Brent, WilliamPolicy, not finance, biggest obstacle to scaling decentralized renewable energy: Energy Access Summithttp://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/06/policy-not-finance-biggest-obstacle-to-scaling-decentralized-renewable-energy-energy-access-summit.html

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Bressa, RudiMaasai women are leading a solar revolution in Africahttp://www.lifegate.com/people/lifestyle/maasai-women-solar-revolution

Brown, AnnRwandan entrepreneur’s solar-powered mobile kiosks charge phones, create jobshttp://afkinsider.com/108418/sharing-power-henri-nyakarundis-african-renewable-energy-distributor-offers-biz-opps-cell-phone-charging/#sthash.Fi5HbdFm.dpuf

Business Call to ActionBangladesh: Access to clean water and job creation for disadvantaged youth through solar powerhttp://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38683-Access-to-Clean-Water-and-Job-Creation-for-Disadvantaged-Youth-in-Bangladesh

Chemnick, JeanHow women are reaping benefits from Africa's solar revolutionReprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. Copyright 2016. E&E provides dailycoverage of essential energy and environment news at www.eenews.net.http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060037965

Cohen, BennettThe Consumerization of Energy Is Just Beginninghttp://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/The-Consumerization-of-Energy-is-Just-Beginning

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)Are batteries guilty as charged?http://www.ecogeneration.com.au/are-batteries-guilty-as-charged/

Da Silva, Izael P.The four barriers for the diffusion of solar energy technologies in Africa: Trends in Kenyahttp://africapolicyreview.com/analysis/four-barriers-diffusion-solar-energy-technologies-africa-trends-kenya/

Deb, SutapaIndia matters: Solar revolution in Uttar Pradeshhttp://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-matters-sunny-side-up-1269053

Energy4ImpactBusiness mentorship gives entrepreneur a choicehttp://www.sun-connect-news.org/off-grid-living/details/business-mentorship-gives-entrepreneur-a-choice/

Fleming, PeytonAfrica’s green energy challenge: Mega projects, off-grid or somewhere in between?http://ensia.com/features/africa-energy/

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Guay, JustinWho will serve the world’s missing middle?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-guay/who-will-serve-the-worlds_b_10129844.html

Gubbins, Paul / Zollmann, JulieBeyond the pricetag: The real benefits of off-grid solarhttp://fsdkenya.org/blog/beyond-the-pricetag-the-real-benefits-of-off-grid-solar-2/?utm_source=Smart+Villages+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7b9c18ed33-Newsletter-093&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29b73dbd4c-7b9c18ed33-309635169

Guevara-Stone, LaurieChanging lives with solar microgridshttp://blog.rmi.org/blog_2016_08_18_changing_lives_with_solar_microgrids-1

Hasnie, SohailOff-grid solar can be game-changer for electricity access in Central AsiaThis blog was first published as an ADB blog.https://blogs.adb.org/blog/grid-solar-can-be-game-changer-electricity-access-central-asia

Herscowitz, Andrew4 Lessons from Power Africahttps://medium.com/power-africa/4-lessons-from-power-africa-85c3c617b26e#.db1y3wbb0

Islam, RafiqulPay-as-you-go irrigation aims to cut water use in Bangladeshhttp://news.trust.org/item/20160811050200-04id2/

Jamwal, NidhiIndia: How sunshine brings water to villageshttp://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2016/10/17/sunshine-brings-water-villages/

Kebede, Kassahun Y.Co-opetition: A way forward for solar actors in developing countrieshttp://www.sun-connect-news.org/business/details/co-opetition-a-way-forward-for-solar-actors-in-developing-countries/

Kleijn, Maarten / Fagnon, EdouardBright lights for Benin: Market introduction of Pay-as-you-go solarhttp://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/programme/m4dutilities/bright-lights-for-benin-market-introduction-of-pay-as-you-go-solar

Klemm, JoshThe World Bank’s energy lending is stuck in the pasthttps://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/352/the-world-bank%E2%80%99s-energy-lending-is-stuck-in-the-past

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Koulouris, ChristopherThe rise of off the grid communitieshttp://scallywagandvagabond.com/2016/11/rise-off-the-grid-communities-alternative-living/

Lau, KristinLight for life: Nepal solar farminghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-lau/nepal-solar-farming_b_9499482.html

Ligami, ChristabelPay-as-you-go solar model brings security to small Kenyan communitieshttp://www.sun-connect-news.org/off-grid-living/details/pay-as-you-go-solar-model-brings-security-to-small-kenyan-communities/

Littlefield, ElizabethOff-Grid energy for rural communities: bright promise and caution lights aheadhttp://www.sun-connect-news.org/market/details/off-grid-energy-for-rural-communities-bright-promise-and-caution-lights-ahead/

Magyari, SabiMarket development trends in the African solar PV off-grid sectorhttp://www.solarplaza.com/channels/markets/11632/market-development-trends-african-solar-pv-grid-sector/

Maheshwari, Shweta / Finestone, JeanneLighting the way to women’s economic empowermenthttps://3blmedia.com/News/Lighting-Way-Womens-Economic-Empowerment

Makoye, Kizito§ Solar panels power business surge - not just lights - in Tanzania

http://news.trust.org/item/20160419141012-rf3lx§ Women solar entrepreneurs drive East African business surge

http://news.trust.org/item/20161206111106-w2r52/

Mukeredzi, TonderayiWhat's holding back off-grid renewable energy in Zimbabwe?http://news.trust.org/item/20160909070629-5ka1m/

Murray, DeclanDesigning (for) solar waste from Nairobi (PhD)https://solarandotherstories.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/phd-designing-for-solar-waste-from-nairobi/

News GhanaLow investment hinders access to energyhttps://www.newsghana.com.gh/low-investment-hinders-access-to-energy/

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Ngalame, Elias NtungweSolar power, text messages fight maternal deaths in rural Cameroonhttp://news.trust.org/item/20160412133909-j8cs8

Nixon, Tim5 signs sustainability is the new engine for global economic growthhttps://www.greenbiz.com/article/5-signs-sustainability-new-engine-global-economic-growth

Njagi, KagonduAs solar power expands the work day, incomes rise in eastern Kenyahttp://news.trust.org/item/20161208105058-0zrlq/?source=gep

Novogratz, JacquelineSolving energy poverty through an off-grid solar electricity revolutionhttp://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/solving-energy-poverty-off-grid-solar-electricity-revolution/

O’Neill, Kathryn M.Going off grid: Tata researchers tackle rural electrificationhttp://news.mit.edu/2016/tata-researchers-tackle-rural-electrification-0121

Ogbemudia, GodfreyWhen the grid becomes the back-up energy source for business enterprise - The Nigerian storyhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-grid-becomes-back-up-energy-source-business-nigerian-godfrey

Oleksiw, ZadieSolar business models for growth: The private sector needs to lead on India’s rural electrification deficithttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/zadie-oleksiw/solar-business-models-for_b_9788584.html

Palit, DebajitSustainable electricity for all: Experiences with mini-grids in Senegalhttp://www.theenergycollective.com/debajitpalit/2377182/sustainable-electricity-for-all-how-viable-are-mini-grids-in-senegal

Penar, PeterWhat lies behind Africa's lack of access and unreliable power supplieshttps://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-africas-lack-of-access-and-unreliable-power-supplies-56521

Sanchez, DanaWho gets a $1B line of credit? Akon woos Middle East investors for solar lighting Africa businesshttp://afkinsider.com/122682/akon-woos-middle-east-investors-for-his-solar-lighting-africa-business/

Sarpong, JonChallenges and opportunities for foreign solar energy firms in Africahttp://constructionreviewonline.com/2016/10/challenges-and-opportunities-for-foreign-solar-energy-firms-in-africa/

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Schützeichel, HaraldA tribute to the inventor of Pay-as-you-go: Jürgen Gehrhttp://www.sun-connect-news.org/technology/details/a-tribute-to-the-inventor-of-pay-as-you-go-juergen-gehr/

SciDev.Net‘Suitcase lab’ in the fight against kala-azarhttp://www.scidev.net/south-asia/disease/news/suitcase-lab-in-the-fight-against-kala-azar.html

SeveaChbar Chros: outlook of the first solar village and mobile payment system of Cambodiahttp://www.sun-connect-news.org/off-grid-living/details/chbar-chros-outlook-of-the-first-solar-village-and-mobile-payment-system-of-cambodia/

Shah, JigarHow solar investment can light up Indiahttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jigar-shah/how-solar-investment-can-_b_10445140.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green

Singh, Kartikeya To scale or not to scale? Lessons from India’s off-grid solar technology sectorhttp://www.cgdev.org/blog/scale-or-not-scale-lessons-indias-grid-solar-technology-sector

Slater, VictoriaLiving Off the Grid in the 21st Centurywww.quickenloans.com/blog/living-off-grid-21st-century

SolarplazaThe growing influence of telecom companies in off-grid marketshttp://www.unlockingsolarcapital.com/newssource/2016/9/20/the-growing-influence-of-telecom-companies-in-off-grid-markets

Tomlinson, Daniel§ Africa needs more than a one-size-fits-all energy solution

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/269921-africa-needs-more-than-a-one-size-fits-all-energy

§ It’s time to change our definition of ‘real’ energy in developing countrieshttp://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/its-time-to-change-our-definition-of-real-energy-in-emerging-economies?utm_campaign=SUN+Newsletter&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=28440834&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9Gs6WjEwJmQb8Id9DkB8ocr2VFNnOQEV-PCpZVpRsB1vzX_Y8YclVQnNUGCop_9iWauWEYEyJFiBNnLKbgMOn7loky0m4JuNnvt8M5yqd4zTNJ3xg&_hsmi=28440834

Tozun, NedReducing energy poverty not only for solar and impact investorshttps://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/25/reducing-energy-poverty-not-solar-impact-investors

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Vesper, IngaElectricity is a means, not an endhttp://www.scidev.net/global/energy/scidev-net-at-large/electricity-solar-power-access.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=SciDevNewsletter&utm_campaign=international%20 SciDev.Net%20 up-date%3A%2029%20February%202016#sthash.L88hol9U.dpuf

Wanzala, Justus BahatiSolar-Powered Farming, Built in Kenyahttps://howwegettonext.com/pump-technologies-enhance-smallholder-irrigation-in-kenya-89f11eb45d90?mc_cid=87f3b6fa69&mc_eid=30f1bd58ca#.veoa2ok93

Williamson, AimeeHow industry leaders drive philanthropy forward in developing countrieshttp://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2016/01/178251/how-industry-leaders-drive-philanthropy-forward-in-developing-countries/

Wisenbaker-Scheel, CourtniHow solar can benefit emerging economies/countrieshttp://www.sun-connect-news.org/market/details/how-solar-can-benefit-emerging-economiescountries/

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