A local rides his bicycle, powered by solar-charged batteries, in the outskirts of Yangon. SolarHome, the pioneer in PAYG solar energy for off-grid households in Southeast Asia, has successfully installed 1,000 systems in rural Myanmar.
SolarHome, the pioneer in Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) solar energy for off-grid households in Southeast Asia, has successfully installed 1,000 systems in rural Myanmar.
This has brought lighting to some 4,900 people, enabling 1,670 children to extend their study hours, 200 rural shop-owners to increase their earnings by keeping the store open after dark and 120 fishermen to pursue productive night fishing, according to data provided by the start-up.
This comes after SolarHome closed a pre-Series A round of equity funding led by Uberis Capital and debt funding from Kiva, which enabled it to move from pilot to industrial production mode and scale up at a faster pace.
In the last three months, SolarHome has ramped up the number of successful system installations from under 100 to over 500 per month, and now operates out of five hubs across Myanmar.
SolarHome installs integrated solar energy and appliance units in customers’ homes. It also offers affordable “rent-to-own” plans of energy service subscription. This lowers the barriers to adoption of solar technology by the poorest in society, allowing those who live too far away from the grid to enjoy access to electricity through solar power.
Headquartered in Singapore, SolarHome was seeded and developed by FORUM, the largest fintech venture builder in emerging Asia. It now has a market of 27 million households living outside of the electric grid.
“Our traction in the last few months has been consistently exceeding our expectations. In the next year, we plan to bring affordable renewable energy to over 40,000 households in Myanmar,” said Mila Bedrenets, deputy CEO of SolarHome.
In 2014, around 10pc of Myanmar households were using solar energy to generate electricity, according to IFC. At the time, just over a third of households bought electricity from the national grid, while another third relied on kerosene and candles for lighting. Around 20pc used batteries and private generators, while just 2pc of the country’s electricity was generated by hydropower.
Photo cover - EPA