The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded a total of $4 million to eight startups that are revolutionizing household solar power across Africa through the Scaling Off-Grid Energy: Grand Challenge for Development.
The announcement was made by Power Africa Coordinator Andrew M. Herscowitz at the 22nd session of the UN Climate conference (COP 22)
“The Grand Challenge for Development is designed to support innovators like these eight companies who are scaling up their inventions,” said Herscowitz. “The options for powering your home and business are changing, and these types of innovations will create opportunities to transform the power sector in homes across the planet,” he said.
The Scaling Off-Grid Energy Enterprise Awards provide seed funding to solar start-ups to support geographic expansion throughout Africa, test new business models and tap into private and public financing.
It is expected that The Enterprise Awards will create up to 120,000 additional connections in off-grid communities.
The new awards will enable recipients to expand home solar power solutions to existing and new African markets, improve payment and distribution processes, and bring down costs for customers:
- Greenlight Planet (Nigeria,Uganda) is expanding sales of low-cost solar home solutions through state of the art pay-as-you-go technology and deep distribution networks.
- d.light (Kenya) is developing and expanding on software, training materials, and a call center to support a direct distribution model.
- Fenix (Zambia) is expanding energy access through its expandable solar solutions kits that include options to power phones, lights, radios, televisions, and other appliances.
- Orb Energy (Kenya) is establishing partnerships with banks and microfinance institutions to finance consumer solar system purchases.
- VITALITE (Zambia) is distributing pay-as-you-go solar home systems, televisions, solar lamps, and appliances for rural, off-grid communities.
- PEG Africa (Ghana) is testing new digital payment tools that will help rural customers more easily pay for their solar home systems using mobile money.
- Shinbone Labs (Benin, Ghana) is directly selling pre-packaged, expandable, low-cost solar kits that can be remotely activated, monitored and, in the future, paid by mobile phones.
- Village Energy (Uganda) is building a last-mile solar distribution and servicing network in rural Uganda by training young men and women to become technicians and retail shop managers in their communities.
