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.

The Global LEAP Awards Buyer’s Guide is a catalog of the world’s best off-grid appliances. This edition contains information about solar water pumps that were named Winners and Finalists in the 2019 Global LEAP Awards. The Buyer’s Guide serves as a procurement tool for off-grid solar companies and distributors, and provides general market intelligence to other interested stakeholders. It includes rated product specifications, performance metrics based on laboratory testing, and sales contact information.

The Global LEAP Awards identify one Winner as the best overall product nominated for each size and form factor-based category, with other high-quality products in that category identified as Finalists. The 2019 Global LEAP Awards Solar Water Pump Buyer’s Guide lists twenty-seven solar water pumps designed for 1 to 5-acre smallholder farmers.

Download the 2019 Global LEAP Awards Buyer’s Guide for Solar Water Pumps.

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 solar water pump industry is at an important inflection point, with technology increasingly well-adapted for small-scale users and prices on the decline. Declining costs in photovoltaic technology had led to irrigation products better tailored for smallholder farmers. While the upfront cost of a solar water pump remains high, potential fuel cost savings and income gains from high-value crops would allow some farmers to break even on their investment within 12-18 months.

This report offers insights on the solar water pump market in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia like never before. Analysis underscores a growing business case for promotion and adoption—with an addressable market estimated at USD 15.6 billion—and identifies solutions to barriers preventing market scale.

Download the full report here: Solar Water Pump Outlook 2019: Global Trends and Market Opportunities

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.

Cost reductions in solar water pumps have the potential to make modern irrigation more accessible and cost-effective for nearly 500 million smallholder farmers globally. Between May 2018 and May 2019, CLASP—acting as co-Secretariat of the Efficiency for Access Coalition—convened a technical working group to construct an industry roadmap for solar water pumps.

This document identifies a series of technology improvements for remote monitoring systems and brushless DC motors that, if adopted, could improve pump efficiency and performance. It also outlines recommendations for future research, including: connectivity, the impact of water quality on durability, quality assurance, and specific in-country barriers. Together, these components form a common starting point for further investment and industry collaboration.

Download the Solar Water Pump Technology Roadmap report here.

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 have the potential to improve the yields and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, yet little is known about how customers view, value, and interact with their pump.

Between 2016 and 2018, Efficiency for Access partnered with 60 Decibels to survey 375 solar water pump customers in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania about their experiences. The customer interviews explored user characteristics, background, farming practices, former irrigation and pumping methods, satisfaction with current solar water pumps, quality of life changes, and changes in productivity. The report also benchmarks consumer experience with solar water pumps against other technologies (e.g. solar home systems and cookstoves) deployed in the off-grid energy sector.

This analysis provides valuable insights into customer purchasing decisions and use cases. Most notably, it provides compelling preliminary evidence on the positive impacts of solar water pumps on farmer productivity and quality of life.

Download the Use and Benefits of Solar Water Pumps 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.

This report addresses important market and consumer information gaps for solar water pump manufacturers and distributors in Tanzania and beyond. While high solar radiation power and declining photovoltaic costs make solar water pumps (SWPs) an attractive irrigation option for smallholder farmers, their uptake in Tanzania lags behind other solar applications. Limited information about the characteristics of potential SWP customers and market size remains a large barrier for solar water pump manufacturers and distributors.

In 2018, Efficiency for Access collaborated with Simusolar on a major research effort to size and characterize the market potential for modern irrigation in the Tanzanian horticulture sector. This study synthesizes primary data from 67 stakeholder interviews, 81 focus groups, and 407 individual farmer surveys. It unearths new market intelligence on irrigation patterns in the Tanzanian horticulture sector and provides actionable insights for actors looking to increase adoption of solar water pumps (SWPs) in Tanzania and beyond. Its contents include key characteristics of Tanzanian farms and farmers—including farm size, crops cultivated, sales, and irrigation technology used—and six individual farmer typologies, which readers may use to inform solar water pump design and marketing, as well as general market development efforts.

Download the report here: Tanzania Market Snapshot: Horticulture Value Chains and Potential for Solar Water Pump Technology

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.

A full 40% of the global population relies on agriculture as its main source of income, and many live without access to traditional energy infrastructure. Highly efficient solar water pumps (SWPs) can deliver modern irrigation and drinking water services to the nearly 500 million small-scale farmers worldwide.

Scaling the commercial market for SWP technology will make modern irrigation more accessible and cost-effective, increasing farm-related incomes and improving educational, nutritional, and economic outcomes.

• Improving farm productivity has a direct impact on poverty alleviation. Studies show that a 10% increase in agricultural productivity for smallholder farmers in Africa leads to a 7% reduction in poverty.
• SWPs also present a far-reaching opportunity to reduce labor burden on women and girls who commonly bear the brunt of agriculture and water-ferrying work in rural areas.

However, obstacles remain to achieve a more flourishing market. This 2-day workshop encouraged cross-collaboration among product designers and distributors, technology specialists, agriculture sector experts, and other key stakeholders to uncover and identify the many challenges and opportunities facing the SWP market today. The group coalesced around eight topic areas: 1) Consumer & Market Intelligence; 2) Distribution, Installation, and Service; 3) Financing & Business Support; 4) Design & Development; 5) Capacity Building; 6) Testing and Quality; 7) Policy Environment; and 8) Environmental Sustainability.

To learn more about specific outcomes, see the comprehensive Solar Water Pumping Global Market Development Roundtable Workshop Report May 2018.

The Efficiency for Access Coalition is scaling up and bringing together a range of institutional efforts that use energy efficiency as a tool for driving rapid and sustainable progress in delivering clean energy access to the world’s poor. Among products with the greatest potential impact, highly efficient solar-powered water pumps promise to change the lives of millions.

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.