Solar specialist Nova-Lumos has received a £150,000 (US$219,000) grant from the SolarNigera Programme (SNP), an initiative of the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) implemented by Adam Smith International, to help accelerate its operations in northern Nigeria.
Nova-Lumos partners with MTN to provide residential solar systems under a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model across Nigeria. Consumers use mobile payments and transfer cash via text messaging to pay for power in advance.
In a recent discussion between PV-Tech and Ron Margalit, principal, impact financing at Nova-Lumos, he said the firm decided 80W was the best-suited system size, which is on the larger side of most off-grid products. Customers can use their existing airtime balance with MTN to buy electricity from Nova-Lumos.
He also added that: “There is definitely a need for some more risk-orientated financiers, whether it would be DFIs or multilateral development banks or impact funders to come and take the initial risk of financing. The biggest challenge of this sector would be eventually how to [get] commercial oriented and institutional investor funders.”
Nova-Lumos recently received $15 million financing from the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), to fund the deployment of over 75,000 systems across Nigeria this year.
