First video made by Samuel : short introduction of the project and us. More coming very soon!

Salama Rafiki
Samuel & Hugo

When we were working together, Hugo explained me that rural electrification projects, with all these recent parameters, involve people for many different cultures and backgrounds to work together (local beneficiaries, northern companies, southern companies with local staff and foreigners…). It gave me the idea to shoot 3 types of documentaries:

1.    A first documentary showing the "human experience" shared by all those multi-cultural people working together on social values projects and aiming to bridge the gap between remote rural areas and cities.

2.    The second type will be more technical: “State of the art of the rural electrification today”. It will include the analyze of the challenges faced today and the vision of tomorrow, the differences and similarities between the projects observed in Asia, Africa and South America, and the different types of technology used.

3.    Finally, short videos during my field mission will be published on the blog.

The experience of Hugo through EnR’Sud brings many field information that, from my point of view, are really interesting to share through documentaries. I am convinced that these types of projects are only successful if conducted by companies with a strong local involvement, where the beneficiaries live. And a good communication to northern actors, schools and universities, and general public, is necessary to show the key factors of success learned on the field and to understand the challenges of working in multi-cultural teams from all over the world.

Very sensitive to social issues, I graduated from 3A International Business School in 2007, focused on social business. In my opinion, EnR’Sud is, above all things, a meeting of people from different countries and cultures looking towards the same direction and willing to build a better world. So when the opportunity of working as a documentary journalist with Hugo to promote the EnR’Sud Project came up, I didn’t think twice and took my chance.  Since I was a child, I’ve always liked to travel and to discover foreign cultures, as I am myself originally from Madagascar.

For now, I’m working with Planet’Etudiants to discover more deeply the decentralized electrification subject through meeting actors of the domain and learning from Hugo’s last year experience.  In parallel, we are finalizing to raise funds for my work in Tanzania and Latin America. I will also use the videos made in 2011 in Asia for the final documentaries.

The plane ticket is now printed and I will leave Paris on May 5^th to meet Hugo in Dar El Salaam and start shooting!

I hope you will enjoy my work.

See you soon,

Samuel.

PS: you can contact me for any questions on my email address: samuel.nalpas@live.fr

You can find the original post on EGG-energy's blog: http://egg-energy.com/2012/01/new-fellow-in-tanzania-hugo-niccolai-and-its-en...

Reminder on EnR'Sud project:

I joined the EGG-energy team in Tanzania on January 7th after having worked with social enterprises in Laos, Indonesia and Bangladesh. In this first post, I would like to share with you my previous experiences related to improving access to power for the world’s BoP, and explain why I decided to work for EGG-energy.

My work today for EGG-energy is part of a 2 year project, EnR’Sud, which I designed for a year before setting off to work for 5 different social organizations specialized in Decentralized Rural Electrification (DRE) in South-East Asia, Africa and South America. EnR’Sud stands for Energies Renouvelables’ Sud, which is French for Renewable Energy – South. Its sponsors include French companies active in the energy sector such as Schneider Electric and électricité de France (EDF), a group of engineering schools named l’Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse as well as other institutions and private companies.

My goal for the EnR'Sud project is to learn from successful DRE companies and projects around the world so as to create and distribute tools and methods that will make the multiplication of DRE initiatives easier, and which will stimulate the development of new entrepreneurial approaches from DRE applications. The biggest challenge of this study is to compare and contrast the factors that were essential to the success of these social enterprises in developing sustainable market-based solutions to the social and economic problems faced by rural people in remote areas.

2011:South East Asia

 Let me introduce you to the three companies I have worked for in 2011. They represent 3 different approaches dedicated to the same purpose.

 Created in 1996 by Muhammad Yunus as one of the « Grameen Sisters » - social companies that satellite around the initial micro-credit institution, the well-known Grameen Bank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank) - Grameen Shakti (GS) was established as a « Social Business » with the aim of promoting the use of affordable, clean, modern, and sustainable energy technologies by the people of rural Bangladesh. 

Individual solar home systems (SHS), biogas plants and improved cook stoves are their three main products proposed to their customers.

Grameen Shatki’ business model is based on micro-credit: the beneficiaries have different payment options from a 100% down payment to a 3 years payback period. This loan is provided by a Bangladeshi financial institution supported by the World Bank (IDCOL, Infrastructure Development Company Limited), but it is GS that collects monthly payments made by the end beneficiaries and is accountable for paying back IDCOL. In addition to making the larger loan, IDCOL subsidizes a small % of each system.

In order to be as close to its customers as possible, GS operations are divided over more than 1,200[1] offices, from the Head Quarter located in Dhaka to Divisional, Regional and Branch offices in all regions of Bangladesh. With more than 10,000 employees and 20,000 SHS installed per month, GS became financially sustainable within 4 years of its operations. The rapid expansion of its programs as well as their choice to localize services at the community level helped them drive costs down.

Sunlabob (http://www.sunlabob.com/) is a Lao commercial company. It was set up in 2000 by its current CEO, Andy Schroeter, and has been licensed for power operations since 2001. It offers renewable energy products and provides commercially viable energy services to remote areas, focusing on places that the national electricity grid will not reach for many years.

Sunlabob Renewable Energy Co Ltd. is well known for its expertise in solar lanterns projects, its core business since the creation of the company. However, with today more than 70 employees, the company provides a much wider range of services in urban and off-grid rural areas. On-grid solar installations, water-pumping and water treatment systems, solar lanterns and individual solar home systems, and micro hydro power plants are part of their current product portfolio. Since 2008, when Sunlabob launched an Energy Efficiency department, the company has been not only focusing on rural areas, but also working with urban ones, conducting energy audits, energy efficiency consultancies for buildings and factories, and supplying and installing energy-efficient materials.

 Sunlabob projects in off-grid areas are divided in three categories: solar lantern stations financed by international development aid institutions (http://www.sunlabob.com/solar-rechargeable-lamps.html), rural electrification tenders (mainly to implement thousands of solar home systems in developing countries), and individuals or organizations (conducting development projects in rural Laos) that need Sunlabob’s renewable energy services. Sunlabob’s expertise in international tenders is more and more recognized thanks to a strong engineering department and a permanent tender team of several employees.

Sunlabob’s business model is different from Grameen Shakti’s in the sense that they don’t solely rely on their own rural electrification model, the solar lanterns, but propose many renewable energy services adapted to a wide range of clients. After many years of experience with solar lanterns, they decided to focus on quality, sustainability, and maintenance of the systems, and not charge the end-users. Indeed the hardware, training and installation are 100% financed by international organizations (NGOs, foundations, governmental institutions…) but Sunlabob has developed an innovative solution to ensure the capability of the beneficiaries to maintain the equipments properly during the overall life of their system by themselves.

This solution is a simple business model, based on a fee-for-service concept. Kerosene lamps are replaced with high-quality solar lanterns and a very simple charging system that doesn’t require any prior knowledge in electrical engineering. The Sunlabob business model provides opportunities for micro-enterprise formation in the villages and clean energy distribution.

While rural electrification is GS and Sunlabob’s core business, it is not PAMATEC’s. They got the opportunity to jump into it by being the link between French and Pilipino governments for this huge project. Since then they decided to incorporate it to their main activities and have participated to several tenders inside the Philippines.

What I learned from these companies  and what I wish to learn from EGG-Energy in 2012.

Each experience was unique and each model I discovered has its own strengths and weaknesses. In Bangladesh, I saw a company as no others in rural electrification: more than 3.5 million beneficiaries in early 2011, a micro-credit system well managed thanks to the Grameen Bank influence in the country, and a geographic organisation of the offices optimizing sales, marketing and technical supports to be as close as possible to the customers. The company has created a business model that matches perfectly the characteristics of the country it serves: a small and flat land with one of highest inhabitants density in the world.

Having worked for nearly 7 months as Sunlabob’s Solar Lanterns project manager, I was able to see what factors govern the dynamics of these social companies created by foreigners. As many people come for missions between 6 months and 2 years, it is difficult to build a good and durable team spirit. Andy Schroeter succeeds in that sense by creating a strongly motivated local staff in all departments of the company. Working regularly with the technical team I could see how enthusiastic and proud they were to work for a social company like Sunlabob. With all the skills they learned on renewable energies throughout the years and their motivation to participate to the company’s expansion, the success of professional installations is guaranteed.

An other key factor Sunlabob understands after many years working on rural electrification projects, is to provide the simplest technology possible in association with the most reliable and high quality products: changing their home made lantern to the Phocos Pico Lantern is a good illustration of this strategy. Note that the recent arrival of Northern big companies such as Schneider Electric or Phocos in this market enables the creation of high quality products at an affordable price. This is one of my biggest observations last year, as I also observed it in Grameen Shakti buying large quantities of Schneider Electric LED lights, their supplier since 2011.

Why EGG?

When I discovered EGG-energy 18 months ago, I was really enthused and wished to incorporate it to my EnR’Sud project for many reasons. The two major ones were the following:

 First, their business model is based on a service that people from the BoP can afford to pay themselves. With 80% of the population living within five kilometers of a transmission line and less than 15% having access to electricity, EGG-energy’s model is completely in line with the Tanzanian context.

Second, after having worked for companies with more than 10 years of experience, I loved the opportunity to join a dynamic start-up 100% focused on rural electrification. I hope this helps me better understand the challenges faced to succeed in this domain!

I will be reporting from time to time on the EGG initiatives that I will be involved with - It’s already been a busy month, and I look forward to the coming ones!

Till then,

Hugo.

Since Friday 6^th of January, I am in Dar Es Salam, the biggest city in Tanzania with about 3 millions inhabitants. Dar Es Salam is considered as the 2^nd port in East Africa.

I will work 6 months here for EGG Energy: company created by a group of MIT and Harvard students in 2009, with Jamie Yang as CEO and  dedicated to helping low-income consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa gain access to clean, affordable energy, using a unique strategy based around portable rechargeable batteries. With a team of 13 people in Tanzania and a management team of 4 people in USA who brings broad and relevant expertise, EGG is growing fast and offers a large scope of work and responsibilities for volunteers doing 6 months mission like mine.

Over 500 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa lack the electricity services that would enable them to live healthier and more productive lives. For many, the weak link is last-mile distribution. In Tanzania, 38M of people don’t have access to the electricity (87% of the population) and 80% of the population lives within five kilometers of a transmission line but only 10% has access to electricity. This results in a heavy reliance on polluting, expensive, and unsafe energy alternatives.

EGG-energy offers a battery subscription service that connects low-income households and small enterprises to electricity: 

1. The power is taken from a grid or off-grid power station and is packaged into portable, rechargeable, and affordable batteries. Each battery is about the size of a brick and lasts about five nights in a typical household.

2. Each battery is rented to a customer in exchange for a subscription fee.

3. Customers can exchange their depleted battery for a fully charged one at any time, by paying a small swapping fee at a nearby EGG-energy charging depot.

Since 2009: 3 stations, 10 distributors, 575 installations, benefiting over 2000 people. To date, EGG-energy had installed 575 electric systems and sold over 1100 subscriptions, including renewals

 Their services are low-cost, enabling customers to save significantly over current energy expenditures:

•  Average saving of $35 per household per year 
•  Time saving from ability to charge phones at home 
•  40% of businesses do not operate after dark, 46% due to inadequate access to lighting

 EGG-energy is also forging partnerships with Micro-Finance Institutions and other credit providers to help customers with upfront fees.

 EGG’s model has attracted many awards and recognitions:

In July, August and September 2011, Sunlabob installed a second batch of Sunlabob Pico Lanterns in villages in Savannakhet and Salavanh province, improving the lives of thousands of villagers.

The lanterns are used primarily for cooking, eating, working, studying and charging mobile phones, and the installation of the systems are a result of funding received from several international organisations who have entrusted Sunlabob to install suitable and sustainable lighting solutions for villages that are not connected to the electric grid.

Prior to the lanterns, villagers had to burn firewood or use kerosene oil lamps for light, resulting in harmful fumes being emitted. With the Sunlabob Pico Lanterns Rental System, carbon dioxide emission is reduced significantly as burning of firewood and kerosene is no longer needed. The solar lantern reduces threats to the environment, and helps combat climate change by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

In a Solar Lantern Rental System, a Village Energy Committee owns and overseas the entire system, and a Village Technician who is in charge of maintaining the system rents and charges the lanterns through a battery charging station. The income collected from the charging fees is divided into 3 parts: 50% for maintenance and the remaining allocated to the Village Technician and Village Energy Committee as their remuneration.

On the first two days of installation, Sunlabob conducted training sessions for the villagers, explaining in detail how the whole system operates, and teaching the Village Technician and Village Energy Committee how to manage the accounts. Sunlabob also taught the village technicians how to use and charge the lanterns and how a solar panel works. They also pointed out common troubleshooting points and how to resolve simple technical problems. Moreover, to ensure proper usage and prevent malfunctions to the system, all the villagers, Village Technicians and Village Energy Committee received a manual in Lao Language.

Sunlabob head back to the villages one or two months after installation for a check-up visit, to advise on technical issues and check on how the village technicians are managing the accounts.

I arrived 2 months ago in Laos to work for Sunlabob, a social company well-known for their knowhow in the installation of solar lanterns in off grid areas.

In this video you will discover how Sunlabob is organized with interviews of different colleagues and what is the vision of Andy Schroeter, CEO of Sunlabob, to ensure the economic viability of his company to realize the electrification of the BoP (Base of the Pyramid) in a developing country.

More particularly one of our biggest projects now is the installation of 450 solar lanterns in 9 villages through Laos. The main difficulty of such projects is to ensure a durability and sustainability of the systems. That is why different field visits are organized to provide a good transfer of skills: the assessment and survey visit, the installation and training visit, and different coaching visits.

As the new project manager of the solar lanterns activity, I will be part of all the field trips to install these 9 systems so I will be able to make videos in the villages of all the phases. In watching these future videos you will see how the system works and how it is implementing and evolving on the field.

See you soon!

You will find below a short description of Sunlabob and their solar lantern system awarded by different organizations.

Sunlabob is a Lao commercial company, licensed since 2001, which offers renewable energy products and provides commercially viable energy services for remote areas with a focus where the national electricity grid will not reach for many years.

Rural electrification remains a global concern, particularly in poorer nations including those in Southeast Asia, Latin America and the African continent. Sunlabob Renewable Energy Co Ltd. has developed an innovative solution that is being implemented in Laos, one of the poorest nations in the world.

This solution is a simple business model, based on a fee-for-service concept, for the replacement of kerosene lamps with high-quality solar lanterns. The Sunlabob business model provides opportunities for micro-enterprise formation in the villages and clean energy distribution.

Sunlabob has developed a solution that removes the problem of owning poor- quality equipment from the user, by enabling them to purchase a service instead of hardware. It also allows for the development of a micro enterprise. The system is made up of a solar charging station and lantern units that are communally owned by the village. Households pay a small fee (less than what they pay for kerosene) for a fully charged solar lantern that they can take home or to their fields for lighting. When the battery of the lantern has been depleted, the household will exchange the depleted lantern with a fully charged one, again for a small fee.

For the households, the recharging fee is a regular small expense, similar to buying kerosene at the village shop. However, with these rechargeable solar lanterns, the households get better quality and safer lighting compared with using kerosene and part of the fee will go towards the maintenance of the lanterns. This money is managed by representatives inside the village.

(download)

Click here to download:

Panay-_Hydro,_BCS,_Biomasse.m4v (67.36 MB)

You will discover in this video:

·      Micro hydraulic projects: their technical characteristics, the electrical service provided to the village and how the people are organized to maintain it.

·      Batteries Charging Station: how solar panels can be used in an other way and why in particular cases it is more adapted.

·      Rice Hull oven: using free biomass to produce heat and help little businesses to expand their activities.

(download)

Click here to download:

PRES_Project.m4v (63.97 MB)

The Philippine Rural Electrification Service (PRES) project is considered as the largest countryside power projects in the Philippines. A partnership between the governments of Philippines and France, PRES brings electricity to 18,000 households in the province of Masbate, one of the Philippines’s poorest.

 PRES was implemented by Paris-Manila Technology Corporation (PAMATEC) with French Partner, ETDE (Groupe Bouygues). It was financed by the Filipino-French protocol amounting to 17.5 Milion Euro which covered exclusively the electrification component of the program. Aside from this, basic services such as lighting for barangay halls and school buildings, provision of vaccine refrigeration and lighting for rural health units as well as provision of streetlights to major thoroughfares were also the project’s main concern.

 The project involves the installation of mini-grid powered by diesel and photovoltaic (PV) systems representing 12,800 and 5,200 connections, respectively. The diesel powered mini-grid provided electricity to households, commercial establishments, community facilities, and rural industries that are concentrated or clustered in nature. Dispersed households, on the other hand were provided with individual solar home systems.

(download)

Click here to download:

Grameen_Shakti_-_Off_grid.m4v (54.29 MB)

Pour des informations plus précises sur les résultats de l'étude, me contacter sur mon adresse mail. hugo.niccolai@gmail.com

(download)

Click here to download:

Grameen_Shakti_-_Installation_SHS.m4v (40.08 MB)

Cette vidéo plutôt technique montre bien les éléments nécessaires à une telle installation ainsi que les étapes chronologiques suivies par le personnel de la Grameen Shakti sur le terrain.

Les principaux composants d’un système solaire sont : le panneau photovoltaïque, la batterie, le régulateur de charge, les lampes, TV, chargeur de tel et les câbles permettant de relier tous ces éléments…