energy access

from no-grid to the un-grid

energy poverty

1.3 billion people don’t have access to electricity and rely on alternatives such as burning kerosene for lighting. In South Sudan, women can spend up to 3 hours each day collecting grass to burn for lighting.

“With kerosene I couldn’t read comfortably, always straining. But it was the children who suffered most; we used to run out of kerosene four or five times a month, and with no light they couldn’t complete their studies. Now we have clean permanent light, we are saving money, and I am so happy for me and my family,” Samuel, first Indigo customer

There are also 600 million mobile phone subscribers worldwide who lack access to electricity and spend $15-35 a year on phone charging . In sub-Saharan Africa, mobile phone penetration is almost ubiquitous. The World Bank predicts over a billion people will still be off-grid in 2030 because the increase in electrification is unable to keep up with population growth.

the cost barrier

Solar power is an obvious alternative to kerosene, candles or disposable batteries which, light-for-light, cost over 100x the price of the equivalent energy in the West and can represent as much as 30% of the net income of poor households. Conventional solar lighting products require the customer to pay a high initial purchase cost. A rural farmer on $3 per day struggles to afford a $70 solar power system, which costs the equivalent of a used car in developed countries.

the un-grid

Indigo is an example of distributed power which in rural communities is rapidly replacing the need for a conventional wired grid. Just as mobile phones removed the need for landlines, so affordable off-grid power can be more effective than waiting for the grid to reach rural communities. Azuri’s new energy architecture vision of the “un-grid” is one where developing countries can effectively leap-frog the grid and benefit now from the communications revolution of the developed world.

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