Are Off Grid Solar Solutions in Africa a Solution or Avenues for Exploitation?

About 15 years ago when I was living with my grandmother in our rural home in Kenya, we used kerosene lanterns to light up our world at night. At the time, we had not many expectations about life and we didn’t realize we were so much behind the rest of the world. Today, so much has changed, and many rural communities have been connected to the national grid in Kenya though a lot more needs to be done.

Energy access in Africa is a fundamental component of the progress we aim to achieve as Africans as energy supply means our manufacturing plants are kept running, offices are operational and that our phones are charging. Clearly, the need to enable energy access to the whole population cannot be overstated. The impact of non-connectivity is significant: the World Bank estimates that this chronic shortage of power reduces Africa’s economic growth by about two percentage points every year and hampers productivity by 40%. A lack of clean, safe and affordable light in off-grid homes negatively affects health, education and local businesses.

In a bid to light up Africa, there are many off grid solar energy companies that have come in to bridge the energy supply gap in Africa. This is understandable especially because about the World Bank estimates that about 660 million people in Sub Saharan Africa still do not have access to electricity. These home solar systems are democratizing renewable energy technology at ultra-affordable prices to power millions of homes in Kenya for example. The adoption of these solar solutions has been so widespread such that almost every rural home in western Kenya has a solar lighting subscription.

Amid this widespread adoption of these solar solutions however, two things stand out: cost and quality. Let me start from the cost perspective. Many companies that are offering these solar products using a pay-to-own business model. In this model, customers typically pay a certain amount of money per day to continue using the product for a time period when the company feels they will have obtained value for the initial credit they gave to the customer. My observation is that this method lets the solar company collect a lot more money from the customer who ends up paying almost double the price if they did a one-off installation.

On quality and after sales services, many of the solar solutions do not last long after the expiry of the repayment period. Repayment periods usually range from 6 months to two years yet many of the solar panels break down or cannot be used after two years. These solar distribution companies normally advise their clients to purchase new products through a new pay-to-own plan thereby negating the need find lasting energy solutions to the people in rural communities.

As many families in rural communities do not have dependable sources of income, the average of $1 that these people pay per day is costly by any means. Yet still, people who fail to pay the instalments even for one day are unable to use their solar solution for lighting for that day until such a time when they will make that payment.

This story is similar in many ways in many countries in Africa and I believe governments should come in to regulate these solar solution providers with more scrutiny. Many of these companies are exploiting people who are already at the bottom of the economic pyramid by overcharging them to use poor quality products while governments are giving them tax breaks in the name of creating a favorable environment to provide the much-needed energy solution.