Rain-fed agriculture is a fundamental pillar of the Ethiopian economy. In 2022, agriculture employed about 80% percent of the country’s workforce and contributed nearly 38% to gross domestic product (GDP).¹ However, persistent droughts have posed significant challenges to farmers’ livelihoods and reduced food yields.

Off-grid irrigation as a solution

Solar water pumps are a sustainable, off-grid solution to improve small-scale irrigation, strengthen community resilience, and support sustainable economic growth. Powered by the sun, solar water pumps also reduce the use of fossil fuels, so they are less harmful to the climate. Rekik Bekele is the founder and CEO of Green Scene Energy, a thriving solar appliance distributor. Green Scene recently received business support through CLASP’s Productive Use Financing Facility to increase its supply of affordable solar water pumps.

Founded by Rekik Bekele in 2016, Green Scene Energy provides affordable, high-quality solar energy products in off-grid areas of Ethiopia. Green Scene began by specializing in solar home lighting systems, later expanding its portfolio to include solar mini-grid, commercial and industrial solar engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) solutions for off-grid projects.

In 2022, in response to the growing need for irrigation pumping in rural areas across Ethiopia, Green Scene began distributing solar-powered water pumps. To date, the company has successfully positioned itself as a market leader in the provision of affordable solar water pumping systems.

Financial support catalyzing progress

Despite a growing demand for solar water pumps, the substantial upfront capital required exposes significant challenges. According to Rekik, CLASP’s Productive Use Financing Facility has been instrumental in allowing Green Scene to continue selling solar water pumps in 2023. “We had been seeking investment for some time; by the end of 2022, we were only importing small numbers of pumps at a time, using existing sales revenue,” observed Rekik.

“Green Scene’s expanded capacity to make larger, more efficient orders, is allowing us to reach many more end users. Response to the introduction of the pumps is incredibly positive. The farmers are pleased with the improvements.”

Appliances with a transformative potential

Efficient productive use appliances (PUAs), like solar water pumps, refrigerators, and milling machines, have transformative effects on local communities, small businesses, and the environment. However, despite their potential for income generation, PUA sales remain remarkably low in emerging markets due to their relatively high upfront costs and a lack of access to finance. CLASP’s innovative financing facility addresses these challenges by helping distribution companies like Green Scene sell their products at lower prices.

Multifaceted support

The Facility’s support to Green Scene is multifaceted. Subsidies to lower product prices are easing import constraints, while increased performance testing verifies product quality. A capacity-building grant is also helping with a variety of one-off costs and purchases associated with introducing new product lines.

“The funding has assisted Green Scene in selling over 50 solar water pumps,” adds Rekik. “We expect to sell at least another 250 during the upcoming months.”

According to Rekik, demand is leading Green Scene away from the sole retail of solar lighting, toward a greater focus on solar-powered productive-use appliances (PUAs). She attributes this strategic transition to the considerable success achieved with solar water pumps and a recognition of the tremendous potential within the PUA market.

Assisting customers to access finance

In addition to expanding and diversifying its portfolio, Green Scene Energy has also leveraged the Facility’s support to unlock consumer financing for solar water pumps. Rekik and her colleagues have been working closely with an Ethiopian bank to design the bank’s first-ever consumer loan product for solar water pumps.

“Previously, the Bank had provided loans for solar lighting to consumers through Micro-Finance Institutions (MFI),” explains Rekik. “However, solar water pumps have become more expensive and technologically complex. For the first time, the MFIs are now offering collateral-free loans for solar water pumps.”

According to Rekik, CLASP’s financing has been critical for Green Scene because it is in a scale-up stage. They have been able to use the funding to gain confidence and trust in their business, which has in turn facilitated the securing of additional private financing.

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About The Productive Use Financing Facility

CLASP’s Productive Use Financing Facility, is supported by The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP). It has provided financing to 24 companies in six countries, to enable the distribution of over 13,000 productive-use appliances, directly impacting more than 58,000 households.

Cosmos Ntare’s farm is in Kayonza, three hours outside of Kigali. Until recently, his ability to grow his main crops — peas, mangoes, oranges, maize, and beans — was limited by the availability of water. “Without irrigation, you only have two seasons to grow crops,” he points out. “With irrigation, I will be able to grow crops in the third season, the dry season.”

Water has also posed a challenge for Ntare’s livestock operations. He keeps several cows and goats at the top of a hill, where it can be difficult to transport heavy liquids.

To support Ntare in overcoming these issues, CLASP selected his farm to field test a solar water pump. Ntare had seen these devices on display in shops in Kigali, but hadn’t had the opportunity to try one out yet due to their cost.

Testing clean irrigation solutions

Secure irrigation is becoming a necessity as our planet heats. Solar water pumps are off-grid appliances that use sunlight for power. Photovoltaic panels generate electricity that powers a motor, allowing the pump to draw water from either under the ground or from ponds, lakes, and rivers.

By ensuring a regular supply of water, these pumps can increase a farm’s yield. In addition, they avoid the use of diesel pumps for off-grid electricity, so they have cheaper running costs and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

To understand how these productive use appliances perform in a working farm over time, CLASP and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) selected Ntare’s farm to field-test a solar water pump for four months. CLASP’s team set up the pump, along with monitors designed to measure its efficiency. The researchers are also surveying the farmers during the testing period to understand whether these appliances are a good fit for their needs.

Measuring efficiency and business viability

While laboratory testing gives a glimpse of appliance performance in a controlled environment, it provides only a limited representation of how products operate under the rigors of real use. Field testing like that underway at Ntare’s farm is critical to measure the appliance’s efficiency and durability over an extended period of time. It can quantify time savings and additional income generated or saved, as well as calculate avoided CO2.

These measurements are particularly important in markets where there may not be a history of appliance usage or community awareness of how appliances can impact the livelihoods of first-time users.

About the project

This project is part of the Productive Use of Energy Pilot Study in Rwanda, conducted by CLASP with the support of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and the World Bank. The appliances being tested are electric pressure cookers, electric bikes, solar water pumps, and solar-powered fridges.

CLASP works enhance the access to affordable, energy-efficient appliances to improve the lives of people and reduce the impact on our climate.

Efficient appliances, lighting, and equipment are critical climate solutions, situated at the nexus of mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable development.

However, not enough is being done to maximize their benefits. In this report, CLASP lays out actions that must be taken by 2030 to put the world on a pathway to net zero emissions and enable a just energy transition. Our research identifies the ten appliances most vital to meeting global climate mitigation targets and improving people’s lives: the Net Zero Heroes.

Visit the Net Zero Heroes site to read and download the report.

Appliance markets in their early stages face a daunting challenge: the lack of information on how their products are used in specific real-world applications. To address this problem, CLASP through Efficiency for Access partnered with various partners to conduct field testing on three solar-powered appliances: milking machines, refrigerators, and water pumps.

The results of these field tests have yielded valuable user-centric insights for each appliance, which have been compiled into reports. These reports are designed to benefit manufacturers, distributors, and other stakeholders, with the ultimate goal of improving user satisfaction and enabling laboratory testing to reflect real-world conditions more accurately.

Download the Evaluating Appliance Performance in the Field: Results from Appliance Testing reports.

About Efficiency for Access

Efficiency for Access is a global coalition working to promote renewable and energy efficient appliances to deliver clean energy to the world’s poorest people. It is coordinated jointly by CLASP and the UK’s Energy Saving Trust.

Between 2015 -2021, in partnership with 60 Decibels, CLASP through Efficiency for Access surveyed over 4000 solar refrigerator, water pump and television customers across East, West and Southern Africa. Understanding these customers’ needs, experiences and satisfaction levels provides strategic insights to support the growth of the nascent solar appliance sector.

The ‘Appliance Impacts Over Time‘ report presents the findings of this longitudinal study and offers an exciting opportunity to understand how customers’ relationships with their solar appliances change over time based on product quality, durability, satisfaction, impact, and uptake indicators. The data presented is categorised by appliance type and ownership tenure to produce specific and actionable insights, share feedback from consumers and signal opportunities for improvement.

The customer cohort examined in the report is represented in previous Efficiency for Access and 60 Decibels reports that explore the use and impact of off-grid appliances (electric pressure cookers, refrigerators, solar water pumps & TVs). We recommend referencing the use and benefits reports together with this report for deeper insights.

Download the Appliance Impacts Over Time report.

About Efficiency for Access

Efficiency for Access is a global coalition working to promote renewable and energy efficient appliances to deliver clean energy to the world’s poorest people. It is coordinated jointly by CLASP and the UK’s Energy Saving Trust.

Solar water pumps can be highly profitable investments in dry or variable climates with abundant solar radiation, for example, in Sub-Saharan Africa. For households in these regions, solar water pumping offers numerous economic and social benefits, including:

• Increasing crop yields
• Providing a more predictable source of disposable income
• Building resilience to droughts
• Supporting farmers to better adapt to the effects of climate change

However, barriers such as inadequate market intelligence hinder the technology’s growth and increased impact despite the above benefits. This productivity model seeks to solve the information gap in sub-Saharan Africa by providing market actors with actionable insights to improve farmers’ productivity, enhance the allocation of PUE appliances and enhance food security at the national and sub-national levels.

Key applications of the data available from remote sensing and crop simulations in the report include:

• Identifying locations where a subsidy for an asset such as a solar water pump would be most effective in raising farm incomes and finding areas most vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters.​
• Improving risk assessments and reduce the cost of credit scoring based on the estimated yield and cash flows​
• Developing customized offerings for farmers, including bundling products with extension services and sustainable irrigation equipment.​
• Impact evaluation on yield improvement and new farming practices such as crop rotation/intercropping.

Download the report here: Using Technology to Build Affordable Business Intelligence for the Solar Water Pump Market

About Efficiency for Access

Efficiency for Access is a global coalition working to promote renewable and energy efficient appliances to deliver clean energy to the world’s poorest people. It is coordinated jointly by CLASP and the UK’s Energy Saving Trust.

The off-grid appliance space, especially for larger productive use appliances, has not caught up with the conventional on-grid market. However, advancements, such as reduced prices of solar power modules, have led to new and more powerful solar-powered appliances becoming more widely available. But as these appliances enter new markets, asset owners, investors, companies, donors, researchers and industry support organisations must evaluate and compare product performance and impact. Efforts to bridge the existing information gaps include:

• Monitoring energy production
• Measuring energy utilisation by connected electrical products
• Monitoring the delivered service to quantify the impact of the products.

It is becoming common practice to assess the technical performance of off-grid appliances through laboratory testing programs like VeraSol and the Global LEAP Awards. Lab testing, however, has limitations in determining the full spectrum of product performance, especially where user interaction is a significant factor. To address this, remote monitoring systems can evaluate the long-term performance of off-grid appliances in the field as consumers use and interact with products. This report details beta testing of remote monitoring solutions to gather data on solar refrigerators, solar water pumps and solar milking machines usage and optimise product performance.

Key takeaways include:

• Beta testing is essential for a smooth monitoring process and ensures that the data collected meets the required accuracy and utility conditions
• A one-size-fits-all monitoring solution is not suitable for appliances with different testing needs and complexity; therefore, field testing monitoring solutions will require customisation
• Understanding the network providers’ landscape in the target countries is crucial in developing an adaptable solution that can work even in areas with poor connectivity

Download the Evaluating Appliance Performance in the Field: Results from Remote Monitoring Solutions Beta Testing report to learn more.

About Efficiency for Access

Efficiency for Access is a global coalition working to promote renewable and energy efficient appliances to deliver clean energy to the world’s poorest people. It is coordinated jointly by CLASP and the UK’s Energy Saving Trust.