CB BureauYet another new developmental experiment to have reached rural India is
the pay-as-you-go model for solar power. The idea has been implemented on a
small scale by Simpa Networks.
With a little down payment initially, a villager can get a high-quality solar home system that keeps running as long as the person continues
to prepay through his cell phone.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will be making a $2 million equity investment
in this endeavour by Simpa. The company is claiming that it will be providing
prepaid solar power to over 60,000 households by 2015.
In a statement to the media, Simpa said, ‘In our launch market, India, as in
most developing country markets, the low-income consumer can actually afford a
small solar home system if only they could pay for such a system over time, in
small, irregular, and user-defined increments. That is, if the pricing model
matched the pricing model they are already using for kerosene, candles,
batteries, and phone charging.’
‘We transform an
energy expenditure into an asset purchase. We offer customers the
opportunity for ownership of their energy resource and break their dependence
on expensive, unhealthy, and inefficient sources of light and electricity,’ Simpa’s statement explained
Simpa’s note reads that people in many emerging markets earn
under $10 a day and often spend 30 per cent of their income on
inefficient, dirty and expensive kerosene for lighting. That adds up
to $38 billion a year for lighting and $10 billion for cell phone
charging.
‘There is likely a $100 billion global opportunity for small-scale
distributed energy solutions, with no clear market leader,’ Simpa added in
the statement.
A solar system can meet these basic needs for $200“$400 retail, but
people can’t afford to pay the full cost upfront.
These systems typically include a solar panel, a battery, a charge controller, at
least 3“4 lighting points, a mobile phone charging port and power for charging
or powering small DC devices.
Over the 10-year useful life of a quality solar system, households end
up spending $1,500“$2,000 on kerosene, candles, batteries and phone
charging, paying much more than they need to.