This post was originally published by Empower Generation, which merged with Pollinate Energy to form Pollinate Group in 2018.
Things are going great with EG’s pilot project. Sita has received 3 kinds of small solar lights and is busy building her shop, the main location for her business, Kalpavriksha Greater Goods (KGG)- a small cottage industry that distributes solar PV products and provides local female artisans access to sell their goods in the tourist market.
It is FREEZING here, and it is peak load shedding time, meaning we go for just about the whole day with no electricity, and then there’s a few hours, late at night, with spotty access to light and electricity (hot water, internet, etc). There is NO indoor heating in Nepal, so I can see my breathe as I write this to you in my hotel room. Not having heating indoors is really a shock; you don’t know cold until you are cold all day/night whether indoors or outside. All this cold frustration is just reaffirming that EG is doing the right thing—bringing off-grid clean energy to those who really need it— in the right place.
Lights:
Everyone LOVES the lights and are super jazzed about them. People are eager to have off-grid energy, especially during load shedding. Sita is learning as she goes about how to market and sell the lights effectively. She’s cultivating some reliable sales agents in her target villages, and we’re giving them sales training this Sunday.
Although people clearly want lights, many can’t justify the upfront costs. Most don’t have that kind of disposable cash. They buy kerosene and candles, not because they are cheap (they are actually quite expensive compared to grid electricity or solar) but because they are portioned out in daily amounts, which is the only way villagers here can afford energy. To address this, EG has seeded our first Renewable Energy Fund (REF), at the Jhuwani Community Savings and Credit Cooperative. Through the REF, people can take out a special, low-interest loan for any kind of renewable energy technology, be it buying a solar light or fixing a biogas plant! There is already a ton of demand for the loans. This allows villagers to buy a light and pay for it in kerosene-like installments, over six months.
EG has been trying to get local government agencies to contribute to these funds, seeing as our seed money won’t cover the demand. No luck on that front so far, but we are still trying and we are now targeting local hotel owners, as part of our buy-one-fund-one program.
Having realized that giving people access to upfront financing for RET is just as important as making the technology available, I have decided to seed another REF! This one is in Kumroj village, the poorest of Kalpavriksha Greater Goods’ target areas. Pairing the selling of solar lights with an REF makes people feel EG is here to support the community 100% and is promoting renewable energy in a genuine way, instead of just trying to sell some new product to make a profit. The people of Kumroj were so excited about the REF, and that they now had access to financing for solar power. Over 20 people showed up to discuss the REF and watch me sign an agreement with the president of the Divya Jyoti Community Library.
The main selling point we will be stressing in training our KGG sales agents is the immediate payback that the lights provide. One of KGG’s women sales agents, Manju, said it best when she told me that she is so happy and amazed to discover that by using 2 d.light S10s in her house, after just one week she’s saved over 500 Nepali Rupees because she no longer has to buy candles. Aha!Payback! It’s pretty difficult, however, to convince people of this before they actually start using the lights themselves. Hopefully, our sales agents can really get the word out there and impress upon people in the community just how beneficial these lights can be!
The things people ask me constantly about the lights are:
- Can I get a cheaper one…these are too expensive
- Can the bulb and battery be replaced easily in the local market?
- Can KGG carry customizable individual products, instead of these package deals? People would like to buy one panel and then two lights, or one light, one panel and then later, come back for another light, or a radio. They are smart consumers, asking about the voltage of the panels and about using the panels with the electronics they already have.
This sends a clear message as to what EG should aim for in ordering our second round of products: we need to work with manufacturer’s to provide a range of products that work with each other but can be sold separately.
KGG shop and handicrafts:
The shop is still under construction and will be open probably at the end of February. Like everything in Nepal, it’s going much slower than anticipated.
In the meantime, Sita has lined up some great products made by local women to sell in the shop. She’s selling honey, spices, and hammocks all made by local women, as well as a range of handicrafts (from pillow cases to purses) from IDEAL Home, a local shelter for victims of sex trafficking and domestic violence. She’s also made a deal with the government Women Development Office ensuring they will provide some handicraft (sewing and screen printing) trainings for local women’s groups who will then produce KGG goods exclusively for the KGG shop. Thanks to Allison of FRIEND Design, Sita’s got some bad-ass tote bags printed up with both her and our logo on them that will be available for purchase stateside at EG events.
New horizons:
Today I met with another Sita (maybe we should just change our name to Empower Sitas haha) who has a great idea for a RE business that she’s been thinking about for 4 years: to address the waste management problem (i.e. there is no waste management system here —people just dump their trash in the street!) in her community by hiring women (she’s also the president of a local women’s savings and credit group) and orphans to collect plastics and biowaste from both the street and people’s homes. She will sell the plastics to a recycling center (they buy bulk plastics) and she will use the biowaste in a giant biogas system. She wants to use the slurry to make high-grade organic fertilizer, which she will package and sell to farmers and home garden cultivators. I told her that we like her idea (Bennett and I had thought of a similar one while we were on our learning tour) and that she should take the next three months to do extensive research into feasibility.
Wanted to share that with you as a bit of inspiration- we have women approaching us to propose their RE business ideas now, because of the success of Sita and Kalpavriksha! Ok that’s all for now from Nepal!