Azuri Technologies is a commercial provider of PayGo solar systems to rural off-grid communities. With the widest reach of any provider in sub Saharan Africa, the company is addressing the problem of energy access which affects the 1.3 billion people around the world who lack access to the grid.
Azuri has used mobile technology to turn a development challenge into a business challenge through its Azuri solar home systems, which allow users to pay for solar power on a pay-as-you-go basis, just like they do for their phones and kerosene. This provides clean, safe renewable power to families at about half the cost of the kerosene it replaces, without the need for any government subsidies or tariffs. Azuri’s HQ is in Cambridge, United Kingdom, with staff based in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania and presence in 11 countries across sub Saharan Africa.
The Market
Azuri is disrupting the problems of energy access, helping to eliminate kerosene use and enabling technology deployment in emerging markets. Azuri is addressing this opportunity at scale:
> In sub-Saharan Africa, mobile phone penetration is almost ubiquitous
> 600 million mobile phone subscribers worldwide lack access to electricity and spend $15-35 a year on phone charging = ~$15Bn spend charging phones
> 600 million people lack access to electricity which represents ~$17Bn/year on kerosene for lighting.
> This represents a huge commercial opportunity ~$30Bn/year
Solar power is an obvious alternative to kerosene, candles or disposable batteries which, light-for-light, cost over 100x the price of the equivalent energy in the West and can represent as much as 30% of the net income of poor households.
Impact
The objectives of Azuri’s PayGo solar are to eliminate kerosene use for lighting and deliver clean and affordable power to enable rural Africans to realize opportunities and their aspirations.
It is a commercially sustainable and profitable offering, which combines a sustainable technology with a business model that is compatible with the African rural economy.
Once a week, Azuri exchanges a text message with its customers when they add credit to their unit. This can yield rich data on usage to deduce cost savings, which are of the order of 50%.
Paygo Solar Power
Azuri has a touchpoint once a week with customers when they add credit to their Azuri unit. A sophisticated cloud-based distribution management system not only allows technicians to monitor in real time customer status information but also provides access to training and systems information in real time from a computer or phone.
Azuri works with an ecosystem of distributors, service agents, installers and local entrepreneurs comprising an end-to-end value chain that incentivizes all actors to ensure the systems work for the customers.
Azuri’s entry-level PayGo solar home system provides 8 hours of clean lighting each day and the opportunity to charge mobile phones at home. After paying a small one-off installation fee for their Azuri system, the user then purchases a scratchcard, or uses an integrated mobile money service to top-up their unit. Importantly, this top-up is priced to cost less than their current weekly spend on kerosene and phone charging, so customers start making savings straight away.
Moreover Azuri is also building African entrepreneurs and helping them to grow sustainable and self-supporting commercial businesses, creating economic growth at the local level.
