Our aim is to make electricity accessible to as many households and small enterprises in developing countries as possible. We do this by installing kiosks in rural communities where people can rent batteries and by installing solar home systems. They can use those batteries for their basic electricity needs, such as lighting, mobile phone charging and listening to the radio. Batteries with more capacity are offered allowing people to start a new business, e.g. a barbershop, video hall or a cooled drinks store. Renting or buying one of our batteries is often cheaper for customers than buying the equivalent of alternative energy sources, such as paraffin, candles, phone charging, but also batteries for their radios and torches. One electricity kiosk can serve 150 to 500 customers and can easily be scaled up or down depending on the electricity demand in a community. Most households have a mobile phone which they can use to make prepaid payments. Other people prefer to pay cash or through a loan from a micro finance institution.
We offer electricity in those areas where there are no plans for expansion of the grid and where an off-grid mini grid is not viable. An electricity kiosk can provide basic, reliable and affordable electricity even in areas where demand for electricity is low.
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Our current projects are in Malawi. Only about 9% of the population in Malawi has access to electricity, mostly in urban centers. For the 80% of the people living in rural areas, access to electricity is less than 1%. All rural households in Malawi can potentially be electrified by installing around 5,400 electricity kiosks.
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