As part of efforts to discourage the use of dirty fuels, Greenlight Planet says it has eliminated the use of 150,000 kerosene lamps.
According to the Pay As You Go(PAYG) business leader for Nigeria at Greenlight Planet, Tuga Omoyemi, the intervention has equally led to a greenhouse gas offset of 200,000 metric tons.
He explained that Nigeria is home to the largest off-grid and under-electrified population in Africa. ‘’Government estimates indicate 70 million Nigerians live entirely off the grid or lack reliable access to energy at home, though sources suggest this number to be upwards of 100 million.
Given that most Nigerian households and businesses face severe power cuts, the potential customer profile of an off-grid solar powered system ranges from the rural, lower-income consumer to a salaried professional living in urban Nigeria’’.
The Greenlight Planet boss disclosed that the company started with a simple, reliable solar powered replacement (Sun King solar lamp) for the ubiquitous kerosene lamp when the business started more than ten years ago.
Since then, he said it has grown each year to introduce new products and services to the market.
Omoyemi said based on the success of its pay-as-you-go offering in East Africa, in 2017, Greenlight decided to expand the energy financing business model to Nigeria as well.
‘’While mobile money was a key catalyst in PAYG solar’s success in East Africa, it became clear that an energy financing business in Nigeria would need to be built on a physical cash payment collections model.
Despite the security and infrastructure challenges present in the country, in the last three years, Greenlight has innovated a successful cash collections based business model in Nigeria. “With accelerated cash payment collections for PAYG solar products in Nigeria, we have delivered clean energy access to more than 750,000 individuals through our direct-to-consumer channel’’.
He maintained that Greenlight Planet’s solutions are especially tailored to lower income households, many of whom also live in harder to reach, rural parts of the country.
He stated that forty per cent of Greenlight’s Sun King customers in Nigeria earn between 30,000 NGN to 100,000 NGN per month (US$70 to $245 per month), often seasonally, as opposed to continuously throughout the year. While the PAYG business model has the potential to accelerate energy access in Nigeria, especially to these lower income consumers, the company has realized that it is not the only way to reach Nigerian households and businesses.