Pay-As-You-Go Solar has revolutionised the way people get access to electricity in Africa. The emergence of new technology coupled with declining system costs has enabled the low income families in the developing world get access to electricity. On this episode Nikhil Nair shares his international experience in developing the business for M-Kopa with Girish Shivakumar.
Link to subscribe and listen : Episode 19
The emergence of new technology
It is important to recognise the massive technological developments in the space; as Nikhil highlights the solar panels have become efficient producing more energy per square meter of surface area, the growth of solar globally has bought the cost down significantly. A similar pattern is being observed in the battery technology as well. Advanced lithium ion batteries are getting better while at the same time, the growth in scale is bringing their cost down. Another key aspect is the efficiency of appliances like TV and light, modern day gadgets consume less energy making the overall product offering a value for money. But for a solution like pay as you go solar, one key aspect that is even more important is financing and how it is managed on a day to day basis in terms of cash disbursement and payment collection. So how has mobile telephony and emergence of digital payments helped scale up this business?
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