The millions of residents in low-income communities known as favelas are feeling the worst effects of the energy crisis in Brazil. Many government programs are ineffective due to structural inequality, gang-related violence, and general distrust of government by residents. As a result, there is often a mismatch between the community’s needs and municipal services. Catalytic Communities, a Rio-based NGO working to provide strategic support to favela organizers, led a research course to train favela youth to perform research and data collection that could be used for political advocacy. CLASP supported training on energy efficiency and its impacts on residents’ quality of life.

The research focused on the impact of minimal energy and water access for favela residents, highlighting the country’s unique relationship to hydroelectric power. Recent droughts — and floods — have led to a decrease in water quality and availability, subsequently affecting power availability and costs. Meanwhile, energy is needed to pump water to homes. Many people in the favelas struggle to choose between keeping the lights on and having enough to eat. Key findings from the report include:

• At least a fifth of interviewees suffer from blackouts at least once a month.
• 68.7% were not aware of Social Electricity Tariff (TSEE), a program aimed at subsidizing electricity costs for low-income households. Only 8% participated in the program.
• Energy as a cost disproportionally affects lower-income families — over 30% are considered to be in energy poverty.

These conditions are only worsening, as energy prices rise and utility companies are unresponsive to service requests. This collectively-produced report outlines recommendations for the government and utilities to improve responsiveness and keep the lights on.

This report precedes a more specialized “Energy Efficiency in the Favelas” report, which will be released 21 April, in advance of Earth Day 2023.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 95% of farmers primarily rely on rainfall for irrigation but climate change threatens crop yields & livelihoods. Solar-powered irrigation systems are a key solution – yet uptake is low. To develop and discuss how we could make progress, CLASP hosted a workshop in June 2022 with participants that included manufacturers, distributors, financiers, program implementors, and government officials.

This report identifies barriers in four categories, technology developing & innovation, affordability & financing, consumer awareness, and business & operational models, and suggests solutions for each one. These possible next steps will inform the Kenya Productive Use of Renewable Energy Program’s strategy to supporting smallholder farmers across the country.

Solutions included:

• Prioritize development of irrigation solutions that are high-performing, low-cost, require low maintenance, and can work under low solar irradiance.
• Bundle financing solutions for SWPs with other irrigation equipment, such as drip irrigation kits, water harvesting & storage structures.
• Create centers of excellence/demonstration centers for experiential learning targeting smallholder farmers, including village-based champion farmers who can serve as ambassadors and trainers for fellow smallholder farmers.
• Leverage the existing network of local technical installers by building their capacity through training and certification to build a healthy installation and aftersales support ecosystem.

Recently, India’s PM Modi identified women-led development as a high priority for India’s G20 presidency, and created an engagement group “Women 20” focused on gender equity. While women’s contributions – including different perspectives and approaches to business – result in more inclusive and effective workplaces is widely acknowledged, today only 21 women are at the helm of Fortune 500 Companies.¹

The energy sector represents a unique gender imbalance: energy remains one the least gender-diverse sectors, yet women experience the greatest obstacles in access to quality energy services. According to the IEA, the energy sector workforce has 76% fewer women than men, in contrast with the total global workforce gap of roughly 8%. Women make up only 32% of the renewable energy workforce: 28% hold STEM positions and 45% administrative jobs. The gender imbalance in the workforce is reflected in boardrooms and other leadership tiers, as women in the energy sector are far outnumbered by their male counterparts. A 2022 study of 155 countries revealed that 80% of senior management roles in the energy sector are held by men. Comparatively, fewer women are hired into senior roles in energy than in most other industries.

Women disproportionately shoulder the burden of energy poverty, yet poor representation means they are excluded from energy decision-making processes. Delivering energy services with a gendered lens can reduce drudgery, generate income, and promote women’s health and prosperity.

Equitable representation drives innovation and catalyses inclusive solutions. Experience in other sectors, and anecdotal evidence from the energy sector, suggest that women indeed have an important role to play in sustainable energy development. The World Energy Transitions Outlook 2022 report estimates that a 1.5°C-aligned energy transition will result in 139 million energy sector jobs worldwide by 2030. Of those jobs, 38.2 million will be in renewable energy and 74.2 million in other energy transition-related sectors (e-mobility, energy efficiency, etc.). The growth in the clean energy sector provides an opportunity to reskill and upskill a balanced and diverse transition workforce, inclusive of women at all levels of the workforce.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, let’s not forget how crucial leadership across the gender spectrum is for a more equitable world. At CLASP and through our work, we recognize the important role that women play in promoting clean energy and reducing energy burden. Today and every day, we implore our partners to take action to promote greater gender equality in the energy sector.

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.

With support from the IKEA Foundation, CLASP is collaborating with Charm Impact to pilot a new financing facility for early-stage, locally owned, renewable energy companies on the African continent. The Supporting Early-Stage Local Entrepreneurs (SESLE) Program promotes inclusive finance by investing in local companies, which are often challenged to access the capital they need to grow their renewable energy businesses. SESLE de-risks loans for investors and helps borrowers hedge against volatile currency fluctuations.

Locally-owned companies are key drivers of the renewable energy transition. Despite their potential, financing to help them expand operations and reach more customers is critically insufficient, with investors often perceiving them as too risky. Funding overwhelmingly goes to foreign-owned companies. Often, the ticket size of available micro-financing is too small to be useful for entrepreneurs. At the same time, local commercial banks are unwilling to lend to startups or carry prohibitive collateral requirements and charge exceptionally high annual interest rates.

Charm Impact has developed a unique approach to tackling the financial exclusion of local entrepreneurs. Using its credit risk and impact assessment tool, Charm supports companies in establishing a commercial credit history. This enables entrepreneurs to scale their operations, prove their creditworthiness and access capital from later-stage investors. Adding to this effort, SESLE’s blended finance approach offers a pathway for increasing financial flows to these local companies.

“Blended finance is typically only looked at through the lens of supporting investors,” says Gavriel Landau, CEO and Founder of Charm Impact. “With SESLE, we have flipped this paradigm on its head and created an innovative instrument that caters to investors and entrepreneurs. One component of SESLE de-risks loans for investors by guaranteeing a portion of their investments. While the other supports entrepreneurs by absorbing some of their potential losses in the event of currency depreciation.”

Locally-owned energy access companies are desperately needed to create competition in the marketplace, reach underserved geographies and cater to last-mile customers to boost progress towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7. Without the commercial funding to enable these companies to grow, it will be impossible to achieve the SDG7 targets.

“Energy access for all is possible. SESLE can help accomplish this by offering an innovative new funding facility that creates an equitable investment ecosystem and supports locally owned companies that are fundamentally being left behind”, says Siena Hacker, a Senior Program Associate at CLASP.

SESLE has demonstrated early traction by already incentivizing investment in three locally owned companies across Rwanda, Nigeria and Kenya. After demonstrating the pilot’s success, SESLE will aim to expand its reach and ensure that local entrepreneurs across Africa can climb the credit ladder, illustrate the success of their customer-centric businesses and enhance the growth of the energy access industry.

Jeffrey Prins, Head of Portfolio, Renewable Energy at IKEA Foundation, says, “We have partnered with CLASP and Charm Impact to give locally owned, renewable energy companies on the African continent the means to scale their high-impact businesses. This will help boost the local renewable energy markets, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enable many families on the continent to access renewable energy products that would otherwise be unattainable.”

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About the IKEA Foundation

The IKEA Foundation is a strategic philanthropy that focuses its grant-making efforts on tackling the two biggest threats to children’s futures: poverty and climate change. It currently grants more than €200 million per year to help improve family incomes and quality of life while protecting the planet from climate change. Since 2009, the IKEA Foundation has granted more than €1.5 billion to create a better future for children and their families. In 2021 the Board of the IKEA Foundation decided to make an additional €1 billion available over the next five years to accelerate the reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions. Learn more at: www.ikeafoundation.org or by following them on LinkedIn or Twitter.

About CLASP

CLASP serves at the epicenter of collaborative, ambitious efforts to mitigate climate change and expand access to clean energy through appliance energy performance and quality.

About Charm Impact

Charm Impact’s mission is to combat the financial exclusion of clean energy entrepreneurs across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Charm has provided 27 loans across Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and India with a combined value of £2m, improving energy for more than 350,000 people. To date, Charm maintains no defaults across its portfolio and has had 11 loans fully repaid.

Contacts                               

• We encourage local entrepreneurs eligible for the financing facility to get in touch via hello@charmimpact.com.
• Funders/philanthropies interested in supporting SESLE can contact CLASP via shacker@clasp.ngo.
• For media inquiries, please get in touch with Lisa Kahuthu at lkahuthu@clasp.ngo.

Magdalene Mbinya is a Kenyan small-scale farmer reaping the benefits of solar-powered farming. Like many Kenyans who grow up in rural or semi-urban areas, Mbinya left her home in Yatta, Machakos County, to pursue her dreams in Nairobi. She enrolled at a university there, completed her studies, and then worked as a social worker at various local and international NGOs. Things were going well until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and disrupted life as she knew it. Mbinya found herself re-evaluating the benefits of city living and eventually decided to return to her rural home in Yatta. Despite the hot and dry conditions there, Mbinya was determined to make the land she inherited from her late parents agriculturally productive.

‘Our place is dry, but I can do something with it. With the manpower, knowledge and exposure that I have, I can change it.’

Despite an above-average rural electrification rate of 62.7% in Kenya, Mbinya’s home is one of many unserved by the national grid. Undaunted by the lack of grid access, Mbinya has invested in solar as an alternative power source for her home and farming projects. Additionally, if it were available to her, Mbinya would be wary of connecting to the national grid due to the costly energy bills — especially with recent electricity price hikes.

‘Now I want solar — pure solar…The goal is to go green completely.’

Mbinya’s beautiful home runs on a solar home system, and she uses a solar pump to channel water from a nearby river to a dam in her compound, enabling her to farm throughout the year — unrestrained by unreliable rain and the area’s arid conditions. At the time of our visit, it was particularly dry and dusty — Mbinya mentioned that it had been almost four months since the last rain. Despite this, we saw young papaya trees and other leafy green vegetables growing on sections of the ten-acre farm.

With her Agsol solar MicroMill, Mbinya provides flour for her household and serves neighbouring homes and schools. Her affordable pricing at KES 5 (USD 0.04) per kilogramme gives her an edge over the posho millers at the market centres. The electric-powered millers charge four times more than Mbinya at KES 20 (USD 0.16) per kilogramme, while the diesel-powered millers charge double at KES 10. Mbinya mills various crops, including maize (most popular), cassava, and chicken feed. Schools are her biggest customers — she currently mills maize flour for two schools, with a combined weekly output of 50 -70 kilograms of maize flour. She makes around KES 3,000–4,000 (USD 24 – 32) from all orders weekly. With this money, she employs someone to operate the mill and serve walk-in customers while she attends to her other business projects.

‘Now that my milling service is cheap; I have so many customers. They even buy maize from Kisiiki market centre (about 7km away) and come to mill it here instead of milling there.’

Mbinya learned about Agsol through her sister, who works for a humanitarian NGO. She was eager to try the MicroMill because of the challenges she had faced obtaining clean flour that didn’t smell of diesel fumes. Also, she knew there was a business opportunity to provide affordable and reliable milling for her community. Mbinya’s milling service is so popular in her neighbourhood that customers from beyond a five-kilometre radius come to buy her flour. Due to this high demand, after her initial lump sum payment, Mbinya managed to pay off the financing for the mill in two instalments over about three months. She attributes her growing customer base to word-of-mouth — customers tell their friends, who tell their other friends and so forth. Mbinya also encourages her customers to share their experiences of using her mill when they meet up for their ‘chama’ meetings (informal savings and investments groups) over the weekend.

‘I would say it’s a good initiative for a village like this one where there’s no power and diesel is expensive. Having a solar mill changes our lifestyle and even the food — it is clean.’

An aspect of the solar mill that Mbinya thinks could be improved is that during overcast conditions, the mill runs out of power early in the day. As a result, she serves fewer customers at those times compared to when it is bright and sunny. Besides that, she’s satisfied with the mill and is happy that she can provide this service to her community. Mbinya’s friends and neighbours have expressed an interest in purchasing Agsol’s MicroMill — the only barrier being affordability. Despite her explaining the consumer financing option to them, people are still hesitant to commit to such a large expense.

Mbinya plans to continue developing her home and farm. Among her goals is to sink a borehole, which would be a more reliable water source during prolonged dry seasons. Meanwhile, she will continue to provide convenient and affordable milling services, which she knows her community needs.

‘…the community really loves it (the mill service), and they appreciate it. They know that the food is clean and very nice.’

Adopting solar technologies like solar water pumps and mills boosts farmers’ productivity and saves energy-related costs while avoiding carbon emissions.

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About Agsol

Agsol is based in Kenya and was established in 2016 to develop solar-powered milling machines that can viably serve small communities, improve labour efficiencies, keep more money in rural economies, and catalyse access to higher-tier energy services.

Efficiency for Access has been working with Agsol since 2018, both in research and R&D. The Efficiency for Access Research and Development Fund supported Agsol in two projects — the first project was to develop a MicroMill prototype and the second project involved further improvements to the prototype, including efficiency gains and improved affordability. The R&D Fund’s support has helped Agsol create a highly efficient, more affordable small grain mill with a strong product-market fit.

Wilfred Muriithi proudly refers to himself as a ‘solar man.’

‘I am using solar for lighting, solar for pumping and solar for milling. I’m a solar man.’

But his solar reliance has been borne out of necessity. Despite an ambitious national electrification plan and the installation of electricity poles close to his home, Wilfred and his wife, like many other rural Kenyans, are yet to be connected to the national grid. Wilfred says the government set up the wiring for electricity supply in his area three years ago but has still not installed a transformer.

They live in Mbinguini, one of the smaller localities in Mwea, Kirinyaga County, Kenya, about two hours from Nairobi by road. Wilfred is a retired groundwater and agriculture engineer who previously worked with the government on soil and water conservation and is now an independent specialist in spatial water resource mapping.

Since Wilfred is often away from home on water prospecting trips, his wife is the one who mainly works with their Agsol mill and grinds flour for customers. So far, they are both immensely happy with the MicroMill, which they say works excellently and is reliable.

‘This [mill] is very easy to use…I have not encountered any issues. Even during very cloudy days, it is still functional.’

Wilfred discovered the Agsol solar mill during a water prospecting field visit. In addition to helping his customers identify groundwater sources, he trains them on drip-irrigation system installations and often promotes SunCulture solar water pumps for irrigation systems. On one such pump installation, Wilfred was introduced to the solar mill by the SunCulture team.

Already aware of the cost-saving benefits of solar-powered technologies, Wilfred was immediately interested in the innovative mill. For him, Agsol’s MicroMill presented a convenient option for flour production to meet his family’s needs and income generation through milling for his neighbours.

Access to a posho mill is crucial in many rural communities in Kenya. Families in these areas rely on them for their household and farming milling needs — citing that posho mill flour is more nutritious and palatable than flour from milling factories. Additionally, many rural Kenyan households (70%) rely on small-scale agriculture to earn a modest living and feed themselves. Because of this, crops such as maize, cassava, and millet are often readily available to them. The families typically harvest the produce from their farm and take it to the closest miller to make flour. This is then used to prepare popular local meals such as ugali (maize meal dish) and millet porridge — which are staples in rural homes.

Beyond household consumption, small-scale farmers can save on buying expensive commercial animal feed by milling the crops they grow to produce feed. Despite the undeniable benefits of milling for day-to-day rural-household demands, the posho mills are often inconvenient to access — often located at market centres many kilometres away. Women and children often walk long distances to the market centre to access a posho mill. The time spent travelling and then waiting for the flour to be milled could go towards more meaningful activities, e.g., studying, spending time with family or participating in income-generating activities. Additionally, many posho mills run on petrol or fuel, making them pollutive for the environment and costly due to recurring fuel costs.

For Wilfred and his neighbours, the closest posho millers in their area are at least three kilometres away. Wilfred offers his customers more convenient access to milling services and provides the service at about two-thirds the cost of the traditional posho millers. He charges KES 20 (USD 0.16) for two kilogrammes compared to the posho miller’s rate of KES 30 (USD 0.24). Additionally, the quality of the flour that Wilfred provides is superior to that of the diesel posho millers, which often taste of diesel fumes.

A changing climate

Unfortunately, Wilfred could not rely on customer revenue to pay off the mill’s financing due to the severe drought affecting his home area and other parts of Kenya for most of this year, coupled with challenging economic conditions. He reported that milling orders have been much lower this year than in 2021 because people haven’t grown much maize. Neighbours often mill small quantities that only meet their daily meal requirements. He also mentioned that they sometimes mill on credit, and he allows a neighbour to pay for what they milled during their next visit, often a few days later. On average, the solar mill generates KES 100–300 (USD 0.82 -2.45) daily at least three times a week.

‘I am not alone. Everybody is affected by these harsh economic times. Especially those who had employed people to rely on a salary from their mill — they have closed down.’

Despite the dwindling quantity of milling orders, Wilfred is optimistic that his business will become more profitable. He has identified several business opportunities to widen his customer base, including partnering with the local schools to mill their flour weekly and possibly employing someone to provide mobile milling services at the local markets. He says the government has plans to reintroduce indigenous crops, such as millet, cassava and sorghum, in the region to boost food security and improve nutrition. Once underway, the increased crop production would provide another growth opportunity for his milling business. Finally, he is keen to stop buying commercial chicken feed by milling a more nutritious blend of homemade feed, which will be comparable to store-bought feed.

Wilfred and his wife’s story showcases how adopting a solar mill enables convenient and affordable milling services for rural Kenyan communities while avoiding carbon emissions.

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About Agsol

Agsol is based in Kenya and was established in 2016 to develop solar-powered milling machines that can viably serve small communities, improve labour efficiencies, keep more money in rural economies, and catalyse access to higher-tier energy services.

Efficiency for Access has been working with Agsol since 2018, both in research and R&D. The Efficiency for Access Research and Development Fund supported Agsol in two projects — the first project was to develop a MicroMill prototype and the second project involved further improvements to the prototype, including efficiency gains and improved affordability. The R&D Fund’s support has helped Agsol create a highly efficient, more affordable small grain mill with a strong product-market fit.

October 19, 2022 — Today, at the Off-grid Solar Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, GreenMax Capital and CLASP announced the Green4Access Financing Facility (G4A) launch. G4A’s initial pilot phase will catalyse project and consumer financing for local renewable energy companies in Uganda and Nigeria, expanding next year to include Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and up to 10 additional countries across Sub-Saharan Africa. The increased financing triggered by G4A’s risk mitigation instruments will enable low-income households to invest in solar home systems and appliances, deliver mini-grid installations and improve service delivery at community health facilities. G4A is supported by the IKEA Foundation.

Local lending for renewable energy in East and West Africa is not scaling at the speed required. According to World Bank projections, sub-Saharan countries will account for 85% of the world’s unelectrified population by 2030. Off-grid, distributed renewable energy supply coupled with solar appliances and equipment will put the region on a low-carbon pathway to electrification. Yet, there is a considerable gap between the funding available to energy access companies and what they require to provide more communities with energy services.

G4A is establishing a blended finance platform for first-loss facilities to support off-balance sheet energy access lending in East and West Africa. G4A is offering first-loss products and technical assistance that will help local lenders perceive off-grid consumer lending as sufficiently de-risked while also aiming to allow the fund’s investors to achieve modest returns that make the products sustainable.

GreenMax will manage G4A’s first loss guarantee facility and work with African banks during the pilot phase to reduce risk by covering up to 100% of losses if an individual customer defaults on their loan, up to a cap of 20% of the bank’s total energy access loan portfolio. G4A aims to unlock a further USD 25 million in consumer lending from banks in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Malawi to scale solar-powered appliances and healthcare equipment in its pilot phase.

GreenMax Founding Principal, Clifford J. Aron believes that “G4A’s goal is to transform the energy access finance ecosystem by demonstrating to local lenders how the off-grid energy space can be a significant element of their mainstream consumer lending business. Local lenders provide a critical source of much-needed local currency finance. Their direct lending to consumers will dramatically reduce the pressure on energy access companies to finance their customers themselves- allowing smaller, locally owned energy access companies to flourish.”

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About the IKEA Foundation

The IKEA Foundation is funded by INGKA Foundation, owner of the Ingka Group of companies. The IKEA Foundation is independent from the retail business, with a sole focus on creating brighter lives on a liveable planet through philanthropy and grantmaking. Learn more at www.ikeafoundation.org.

About CLASP

CLASP serves at the epicenter of collaborative, ambitious efforts to mitigate climate change and expand access to clean energy through appliance energy performance and quality.

About GreenMax Capital Group

GreenMax is a specialized fund management and advisory firm focused exclusively on the clean energy space in emerging markets.

For more information on how to participate in the G4A facility, please reach out to G4A@greenmaxcap.com. For media inquiries, please get in touch with Lisa Kahuthu at lkahuthu@clasp.ngo.

Kigali, Rwanda, 19 October 2022 – Today at the Global Off-Grid Solar Forum and Expo, CLASP and Nithio launched a USD $6.5 million financing facility to catalyze uptake of productive use appliances across Africa. The facility will improve appliance affordability for consumers and companies and is supported by the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).

Access to productive use appliances can deliver significant economic, health, education, and quality of life benefits for an estimated 60 million households worldwide and put under-electrified parts of the world on a low carbon pathway to electrification. Yet, affordability remains a major barrier to access and scale.

Speaking during the facility’s launch in Kigali, Rwanda, Jeff Stottlemyer, Director at CLASP said, “This facility is designed to catalyze private investment in productive use appliance markets at scale, making those appliances more affordable and accessible.” CLASP and Nithio identified six appliance technologies based on their relative maturity and potential to drive development impact – walk-in cold rooms, refrigerators, electric cookers, fans, mills, and solar water pumps.

Chianda Njogu, Senior Associate at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) said, “By making productive use appliances affordable and accessible, the facility can transform lives by enhancing income generated by smallholder farmers and micro-enterprises, creating new green energy enabled jobs, and improving the sustainability of renewable energy infrastructure projects through increased demand for electricity.”

The facility will initially operate in Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Uganda based on growth potential and market maturity.

Kate Steel, Chief Executive Officer at Nithio said, “Consumer financing is crucial to long-term, sustainable growth in the productive use market. GEAPP’s support will enable Nithio to leverage our unique, data-drive approach to make consumer financing accessible for more companies and, ultimately, make it easier for their customers to afford these life-changing technologies.”

How it Works

The facility will offer procurement subsidies, capacity building grants, consumer financing, and advisory support focused on credit systems development for productive use appliance distributors. It will lower appliance costs for end-users by discounting the price of bulk solar appliance procurements and providing financing for distributors to enable them to sell their products on credit.

For more information, please visit our website. Grant requests and general enquiries should be sent to Financing@clasp.ngo. For media enquiries, please contact Lisa Kahuthu (lkahuthu@clasp.ngo)

About CLASP

CLASP focuses on appliance & equipment energy performance and quality, to mitigate and adapt to climate change and expand access to clean energy. Super-efficient and high quality appliances accelerate access to and use of renewable energy for the world’s poorest people. CLASP supports progress on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7, affordable and sustainable energy for all. Renewable energy services like cooling, communications, and mechanization empower low-income communities and improve lives in a climate friendly way. CLASP works globally and has teams in Washington, DC; Nairobi, Kenya; New Delhi, India; Brussels, Belgium; and Jakarta, Indonesia.

About NITHIO

Nithio is an energy financing platform powered by its innovative credit risk analytics engine. Nithio leverages its deep sector expertise, geospatial data, and artificial intelligence (AI) to forecast repayment patterns by consumer segment, provide detailed insight on projected cash flows, and finance energy access technologies.

About the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP)

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) is an alliance of local entrepreneurs, governments in emerging and developed economies, and technology, policy, and financing partners. Our common mission is to support developing countries’ shift to a clean energy, pro-growth model that ensures universal energy access and unlocks a new era of inclusive economic growth, while enabling the global community to meet critical climate goals during the next decade. In doing so, as an Alliance we aim to enable 150 million new jobs, reduce 4 gigatons of future carbon emissions, and expand clean energy access to one billion people. With philanthropic partners, Bezos Earth Fund, IKEA Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation, GEAPP works to build the enabling environment, capacity, and market conditions for private sector solutions, catalyze new business models through innovation and entrepreneurship, and deploy high-risk capital to encourage private sector solutions, and assist just transition solutions. For more information, please visit www.energyalliance.org and follow us on Twitter at @EnergyAlliance.

Media Contact:

Eric Gay

Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet

+1 917 912 6190,

eric.gay@energyalliance.org

Washington, DC, September 13, 2022 – A new analysis from Efficiency for Access, “Appliances for All: Assessing the Inclusivity of the Solar Appliances & Lighting Sector”, examines how well solar lighting and appliances are reaching their target populations, and assesses inclusion across solar company employment practices and product offerings. According to the analysis, the sector is largely serving a homogenous demographic: men with grid connections who are better educated and wealthier than their peers. Additionally, women make up only 23% of the workforce within decentralised energy companies. Overall, this meta-analysis finds that more can be done to reach marginalised groups and ensure the benefits of energy access are experienced equitably.

This seminal report is a first step towards establishing a baseline to understand how well the sector is performing across different facets of inclusivity. “As global economic and climatic challenges threaten our progress towards achieving universal energy access by 2030, marginalised groups may be overlooked. This report offers a first look at the solar lighting and appliance sector’s reach to those historically excluded by virtue of their gender, disability, poverty or otherwise,” said Makena Ireri, Director of Clean Energy Access Research at CLASP.

The Sector’s Typical Consumer 

While limited, data from 19 household surveys indicate that the typical solar lighting and appliance user is most commonly a male with a grid connection who is employed, does not have a disability, and is relatively better educated and more affluent than the average person in his country.

• Only 41% of respondents reported earning less than USD $3.20 per day, the international poverty line, compared to over 65% of people in sub-Saharan Africa and over 60% in India.
• 12% of the respondents reported having at least one disability, which is lower than the global estimate (15%).
• 64% of respondents identified as men, while women comprised less than 40% of our sample, suggesting access barriers to solar products across sales, ownership and use.

“These findings, while not exhaustive in their representation, still reveal a sobering status quo that solar lighting and appliances may still be out of reach for millions of vulnerable people,” said Yasemin Erboy Ruff, Clean Energy Access Manager at CLASP. “To truly accelerate the sector’s aim of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7, we need to more intentionally focus on multiple dimensions of inclusivity, not just gender.”

Assessing the Private Sector 

Data from 68 companies in four markets show that women account for 23% of the workforce in distributed energy companies, similar to the broader energy sector at 22%. Notably, 84% of companies did not report gender-disaggregated data. Further, only 5% of the companies surveyed said they distribute or deal in nascent technologies that have traditionally been perceived to benefit women, like electric pressure cookers or solar mills.

Men far outnumber women in managerial positions within solar lighting and appliance companies. For example, there are only three women CEOs in over 200 solar companies in Uganda. This diversity gap within the private sector may lead to biases in the types of products developed and business decisions made, which may affect social impact.

An Incomplete Picture 

According to Lauren Boucher, Research Manager at CLASP, “Principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion are deeply embedded within the ethos of solar lighting and appliances sector and its goal to ‘leave no on behind.’ However, to date, it lacks the standardised definitions, targets, indicators, and data collection efforts required to assess who is included and excluded from access initiatives.”

The report is an important first step toward establishing a baseline to understand how well the sector is performing, but the results should not be viewed as a comprehensive or fully accurate view of the sector. No survey included in this analysis required respondents to share demographic information on all three dimensions of this report (gender, income, disability). In an effort to create the largest possible sample size, Efficiency for Access did not drop observations with missing data from its analysis. These missing data introduce bias and further underscore the need for a coordinated, sector-wide effort to fill data gaps and harmonize tracking and evaluation methods.

Recommendations for Impact 

To deliver sustainable development through a just energy transition, solar products must be accessible to all who need or desire them. A push for a more inclusive sector is good for business: widening access to previously untapped populations can expand customer bases, increase sales and enable appliance markets to scale. Feedback from a diverse consumer base can lead to product improvements that benefit all customers, not just marginalised groups.

To fully realise these benefits, our analysis recommends addressing the affordability gap, developing and tracking diversity, equity and inclusion metrics, and innovating and investing in a broader array of solar appliances, among other tactics.

“As the sector develops strategies to leave no one behind, this report sets a baseline to give stakeholders more clarity, direction, and the ability to track,” added Makena Ireri of CLASP.

A Deeper Dive

To assess how well the off-grid solar sector is reaching marginalised groups, we used data on the respondent’s gender, income, and disability status to calculate the per cent of respondents that identify as a woman, have a household income lower than the international poverty lines of USD $1.90 or USD $3.20 daily, or live with a disability. We

used data from 60 Decibels and the World Bank to construct benchmarks and the relevant region/country to draw comparisons to the broader solar lighting and appliance sector as well as the populations it serves. Respondents were surveyed on ownership of more than nine appliances, including televisions, fans, milking machines, refrigerators, solar water pumps and solar home systems.

To assess workplace diversity and inclusion efforts among private sector companies, we analysed gender-disaggregated employment and compensation data from Power for All’s 2021 Powering Jobs Survey. We also analysed company-reported data on the location of company offices, company expertise, and product offerings using data from Power for All’s Powering Jobs Survey and the Global Distributors Collective’s Member Survey.

For more information, download “Appliances for All: Assessing the Inclusivity of the Solar Appliances & Lighting Sector” and follow us on Twitter for regular updates.

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About Efficiency for Access

Efficiency for Access is a global coalition promoting energy efficiency as a potent catalyst in clean energy access efforts. Since its founding in 2015, Efficiency for Access has grown from a year-long call to action and collaborative effort by Global LEAP and Sustainable Energy for All to a coalition of 20 donor organizations. Coalition programmes aim to scale up markets and reduce prices for super-efficient, off- and weak-grid appropriate products, support technological innovation, and improve sector coordination. Current Efficiency for Access Coalition members lead 12 programmes and initiatives spanning three continents, 62 countries, and 34 key technologies.

For media inquiries, please get in touch with Dennis Migono at dmigono@clasp.ngo.