Newsletter n°3 - July 2008 Microfinance and Access to...
Transcript of Newsletter n°3 - July 2008 Microfinance and Access to...
In this issue:
• Solutions for poor-
ers in Bangladesh
• Presenta tion of
Grameen Shakti
• First Workshops in
Bangladesh and In-donesia
Follow up RENDEV on
the web : www.rendev.org
Contact us:
RENDEV is a project
sponsored by the Euro-pean Commission -
EACI : Execu ti ve Agency for Competitive-
ness and Innovation for-merly known as Intelli-
gent Energy Europa Agency and Toyota Tsu-
sho Corporation. RENDEV aims to create
the conditions of large access to Renewable
Energies (REN) for rural population such as :
awareness of population on possibility and af-
fordability of REN tech-nologies, capacitie s
among stakeholders and private providers, accu-
rate financial schemes. RENDEV will especially
focus on possibilities of MicroFinance in those
Microfinance and Access to Energy:
Major Opportunities for Sustainable Development
Newsletter n°3 - July 2008
In our days of rising oil prices, looking for
substituting energies for rural people be-
come a day to day emergency. In Janu-
ary, Rendev teams went to Nusa Teng-
gara Timur in Pulau Rote and Gorontalo
province in North Sulawesi, both Indone-
sian’s remote provinces. In any single
vil lage visited by our team people were
complaining about rising prices of kero-
sene, the dirty fuel, most of rural people
sti ll rely on for lighting. The price they
were paying range from 4 000 to 6000
IDR, less than 0,5 € per l iter thanks to
Indonesian generous subsidy policy.
Nowadays, prices have already risen by
20 % and Indonesian government has no
choices than cutting the subsidies be-
cause of global rising prices if it does not
want its budget to collapse. Actually, it
means that most of these families will not
have the resources to pay for kerosene anymore and they will not even be able to use old-
fashioned storm lamps.
On the other hand, here is the fantastic opportunities for renewable energy promoters to
show the accuracy of small energy solutions to answer to people basic needs at a reason-
able cost. Rendev team and partners are exploring and implementing on the field solutions
people can pay for, from the tiny 1 W solar lantern to the rural designed 100 Wp Solar Home
System. Under that range of product people can chose to pay from a few eurocents per day
and benefit a bit of up to date technologies such as LED and CFL lamps, enhanced battery
designs and Solar Photovoltaics Industry’s improvement. As the world will think about how to
reduce its oil consumption, we will advocate for those who nobody never think about, the one
that are currently using such few oil that they are not part of the big picture.
During the two workshops organized by RENDEV’s partner Grameen Shakti in Bangladesh
on May, the 15th and YBUL in Indonesia on June, the 18th, the discussions were very ani-
mated and innovative ideas suggested to policy makers in order to implement solutions. The
RENDEV team will build on this proposals to shape tools promoting Renewable Energies
Solutions for low income people.
The RENDEV team
SHS in Singair, Bangladesh - Credits : Planet Finance
Reaching the poorer : solutions experimented in Bangladesh
Achievements so far
Under the first and successful IDCOL pro-
gram, more than 100,000 SHS were in-
stalled by IDCOL’s Partner organizations,
but program requirements make impossi-
ble to propose systems with instalments
lower than 15 USD per month. When a
good wage for a daily worker in the rice
fields during harvest season ranges
around 100 Tk, eg 1 €, one can think Solar
Home System are not for them. Bangla-
deshi don’t and RENDEV’s partner even
less. Supported by the german technical
assistance agency, GTZ, leading organi-
zations such as UBOMUS and Grameen
Shakti looked for alternative solutions
Technical solutions : go smaller
When the World Bank designed its RERDEP
program, rural electrification experts decided
than lower than 40 Wp, the system will not
offer sufficient services and therefore they
define a lower Wp level in the allocation of
subsidies and soft loan. Therefore IDCOL
reproduced the rules and POs were not pro-
moting such small systems. As a result,
poorer Bangladeshi were not able to benefit
from the program. In the meantime, en-
hancement in lamp manufacturing have pro-
duced new devices such as LED lamps pro-
viding a good focused light, and it appears
to the, always poor dedicated, Bangladeshi
organization that there is a market for
smaller systems. After consequent efforts to
overcome technical issues such as solar
modules life length, they are now coming to
the market with SSHS : Small Solar Home System.
As awareness on this new product is low, as poor people
still look at solar as an expensive product, as people don’t
know what you can do with this system and what you still
can’t expect, RENDEV’s team will focus it efforts in Bangla-
desh on promoting SSHS at the grass root levels in two dif-
ferent pilot districts.
RENDEV’s partner PSL and Grameen Shakti are developing
a new special training module to explain the possibilities to
the population and will start their awareness campaign dur-
ing the coming semester.
Usage : Very basic lighting
Devices Two to three LEDs
Power 10 to 16 Wp
Cost 8 000 To 12 000 Tk (80 to 120 €)
Price From 300 Tk per month (3 €)
SSHS Program brief
A microentrepreneur benefiting of SHS in Singair, Bangladesh Credits : Pl anet Finance
A microentrepreneur benefiting of SHS in Singair, Bangladesh Credits : Pl anet Finance
Social solution : share the system
Grameen Shakti, the ever energy for the rural
promoting company, designed another solution,
based on the current SHS program. Aiming at
night markets and microentrepreneurs, Grameen
Shakti designed the Micro-utility : one microen-
trepreneur owns the system and rent one lamp
to two or three of its neighbour for only 180
Takas a month. It is becoming very popular in
Singair market where it has been experimented.
Rendev will participate to the promotion of solar
utilty in the markets of two new districts.
What about a Light Lady?
Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has become famous all over the world as a promoter of social entrepreneurship
among women and specially women member of the Grameen Bank organization. Experiences such as the Phone
Lady have changed the daily life of rural Bangladeshi. Now when people have to call one of their relatives any-
where in the country or even abroad, they just have to go to the Phone Lady and use her phone paying just for
their connection on a minute fee. It means that they can call whenever they can afford it. This very successful
model has spread modern communication technology to all the remote village of Bangladesh. Why not using that
k ind of pay for fee model for providing light to
Bangladeshis at a very low cost.
Light for the poor
When studying habits of consumption on kero-
sene which is the most popular fuel for lighting
in both rural Bangladesh and Indonesia, it ap-
pears that customer s are buying their fuel on a
daily basis according to what they can afford to
pay. In the bad times, people will reduce dra-
matically their consumption to save money for
food. Here we enlighten a common challenge for
microfinance: how to match credit instalments
with borrower incomes. As RENDEV is looking for
solutions for the poorer, we look for solution of-
fering the same flex ibility than buying kerosene
or candles, a system in which people can pay for
their daily need on a consumption basis.
The concept
In the v illage, a microentrepreneur, the Light Lady, owns a SHS which she uses to charge solar lanterns. People
go to her place every night to take their lantern for the night and pay just for the charge. This very flexible sys-
tem allows even the poorer people to benefit of clear electric light even for only a few hours per day. Simulations
made by the team showed that it is possible to reach the price of subsidized kerosene lamps. As kerosene price
will rise during the coming years, the solar lantern model will become always comparatively cheaper. We can
ever expect to reach prices lower than 10 Tk per charge.
Woman in Singair, Bangladesh Credits : Planet Finance
Grameen Shakti : Bringing Light, Energy , Health & income to the Rural People
Grameen Shakti was set up in 1996 to reach the rural people with renewable energy
technologies to improve their quality of l ives. It has been very successful in this regard.
Grameen Shakti, under its Managing Director Dipal Barua, has installed more than
1700,000 solar home systems in rural Bangladesh , bringing light , energy , health and
income to more than one million rural people . It has shown that solar energy applications
including other renewables can be scaled up massively and rapidly to provide an affordable and climate-friendly
energy option for the rural people .
The key to the company’s success is an integrated model that uses soft credit and ties the technology with income
generation to lower costs and most importantly ensures effective after-sales service at the grassroots level
through the creation of entrepreneurs and technicians. It is creating green jobs and a green economy to drive its
program forward. Grameen Shakti has recruited, trained and deployed more than 1000 engineers through its
more than 400 offices spread all over Bangladesh.
Grameen Shakti has a vision to create one hundred thousand Green Jobs in the rural areas by 2015. Through
rural entrepreneurs and green jobs , GS plans to install one million solar home systems and 5 hundred thousand
biogas plants and 10 million improved cooking stoves by 2012.
Grameen Shakti and RENDEV
For Grameen Shakti, RENDEV is an opportunity to reinforce the skil ls and build capacities in Bangladesh. It is very
important for a further expansion of Renewable Energy services in Bangladesh that policy makers especially un-
derstand the possibilities of Renewable Energy for our country and especially how Renewable Energies have to be
part of the strategy to fight against poverty in Bangladesh.
Workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 19 2008 - Credits : Grameen Shakti