Bringing solar to emerging markets Frans van den Heuvel – 29 September 2014
2 Economics: Fossil fuel development and exploitation is becoming increasingly expensive Energy security: Political conflict is driving a movement to ensure long-term economic prosperity Environment: Climate change and the need to reduce carbon will drive sales of cleaner energy Emergence: Urbanisation driving current and future energy supply/demand imbalance We are in the twilight of a great energy era (1/2) The global shift to clean technology is irreversible
3 Last week the oil dynasty Rockefellers announced to divest from fossils ….. We are in the twilight of a great energy era (2/2) 1923 Sept 21, 2014
4 Welcome to the Terrordome….. Source: EIA, CIA World Bank, Bernstein analyses The solar opportunity 1/2
5 Recent analyst comment on grid parity highlights how solar is taking from utility profit pools Growth of subsidy-free solar The world’s largest solar bridge under construction in London 6 Solar investment in 2030: $3.2trn annually – 25% of all energy investment Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance The solar opportunity 2/2
6 Solarcentury Founded in 1998, we have been around since the early days of the solar industry and are one of the most respected solar companies in the world. Winner of multiple awards for growth, sustainability and innovation including the prestigious Queens Award for Enterprise Leading ethical brand founded to address climate change, committed to a new CSR programme, donates 5% of annual profits to charity we founded, SolarAid
7 Solar PV to off-set diesel generation and leapfrog current technologies Clean energy in emerging markets
8 Why SolarAid? >40% of world’s energy is consumed in the build environment. Are others left in the dark? Energy security
9 A success story: spreading solar in emerging markets
10 SolarAid is a success story; we’re working with the commercial sector to demonstrate that non- traditional markets are economically viable. 86% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s rural population lives without electricity million households are reliant on kerosene, candles or batteries for light. Annually, these households spend around $4.4 billion on expensive, dangerous, toxic kerosene. SolarAid set up SunnyMoney in 2009 to serve these customers with good quality solar lighting. The situation
11 The ProblemThe Solution
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14 Selling Lights According to the World Bank ‘Lighting Global’ SunnyMoney are the largest distributer of solar lights in Africa
15 Doing business differently Self sustaining organisation – focused on making SunnyMoney profitable ‘Smart-aid’ approach - sell lights through social enterprise SunnyMoney: creates sustainable markets and allows revenue to be recycled Self governing – key audience are customers Local knowledge and expertise critical Embedded ourselves in the market – making lots of mistakes – an appetite and culture for trial and error
16 Why it works Solarcentury allowed us the flexibility to be truly innovative and independent We use market dynamics and customer feedback to define our model – not donor conditionality or shareholders Having a commercial partner sharing the same goals and visions supports our development as a charity/social enterprise We are a charity and social enterprise – which we can use interchangeably
17 Leading the way Having the right leadership in place with a shared vision Putting our hat over the wall – our goal is to eradicate the kerosene lamp from Africa by 2020 Using our experience and knowledge to advocate for change (VAT and tariffs/policy climate)
18 Challenges along the way Making SunnyMoney profitable requires dexterity and flexibility Key barriers to market entry are trust and affordability Key issues for our business are ‘broken markets’ and stock outages
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20 Understanding our customers Invest in getting to know them – we have teams in the field collecting information on our customers and non-customers – to date we’ve had 13,000 research interactions In Tanzania over 70% of the households we talked to don’t have reliable income; this means that spending decisions are even more important. As Bannerjee says, ‘the poor have to be sophisticated economists just to survive.’ Challenges for customers are a lack of access to credit and market information. ‘Nearly all of the families said they would be very interested in buying a solar light but that they didn’t know where to buy it’. This proves that currently the market is constrained by supply not demand.
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22 The opportunity Energy is now being recognised as an intrinsic part of the development process and key to alleviating poverty. ‘Energy is the golden thread that connects economic growth, environmental health, social fairness and opportunity” Ban Ki-Moon. With climate change squeezing household incomes as prices of basic goods (food/water) go up, clean renewable (cheap) energy becomes more attractive. Our customers save $70 which they spend on food, education and business inputs. Since 2009 SolarAid has collectively saved our customers over $285 million. There is a demand, this is what we are meeting.
23 Vallet is top of the class thanks to her solar study light Frolence Kalogho bought a solar light for her daughter to help her complete her homework after dark. Frolence told us that “My daughter was failing a lot at school so I bought the solar light so that she could have more reading hours. My daughter now is number one in her class.”