Enable access to energy and empower Jobs

According to the World Bank, 75% of households in Mozambique don´t have are off-grid. Building ‘standard energy’ infrastructure would be too expensive and would add to higher levels of air pollution. Solar panels, though, are yet too expensive for an average household in Mozambique to purchase. Innovative business solutions - like ours - are key to enabling the deployment of clean energy. Our PAYGo business model provides off-grid households access to clean, affordable electricity throughout a fintech model that takes away the burden of an upfront payment and lowers the cost of energy over time. 
Our value proposition enables our customers to earn access to solar energy and move away from unhealthy, expensive fossil fuels, which enables them also to improves their lives by increasing income via entrepreneurship ( e.g. Shops open at night, charging phones). Also helping us to build our enterprise as our employees and brand ambassadors. 

Our purpose is to present a project related to off-grid Solar Home Systems (SHS) in Mozambique. A country where 75% of the population have no grid energy and live in rural areas, accounting for 18 million people and 4 million households.
Is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world (8th poorest on GDP Per Capita - PPP). One of the reasons for this poverty is related to the lack of energy for most of the population, with clear consequences on education, nutrition, self-employment and general market development.
The severe problems on the grid access are due to the lack of infrastructures that didn't cope with the population's growth. There is a large part of households that inhabits in rural areas, within peri-urban areas, in large households and off-grid. Often because of cultural issues, there is no gender equality, which results in a significant reduction in family income and increasing gaps between gender. We take this in high consideration by overcoming these cultural barriers, enabling access to electricity that will play an essential role on allowing access to digital technology that empowers jobs among women and develop their natural manager's skill, which will allow growing household income.

We aim to enable access to solar energy through Solar-Home-Systems for the off-grid to low-income households in Mozambique based on a PAYGO business, a model that is sustainable, scalable, can create direct and indirect jobs among women and young people. Solar-Home-Systems is a proven technology that can overcome the lack of grid infrastructures in this country.
Our product/service is sold in a rent-to-own model and installed in the peri-urban and rural households by local agents supported by our local
Back hub. This modern based on solar energy caught through
solar panels and stored in lithium batteries that run the led lamps, appliances ( e.g. radio, fan, tv, coolers), supplies a clear Led light to the households in a clean, cost-effective and reliable way, compare to fossil pollutant energy.
in our model MNO are our key partner and Mobile money technology is essential to enable our value proposition, therefore all sales & operation process is made via digitalization which enables connectivity, good customer journey and confidence. Therefore we aim to deliver a customer centre model where our customer service manages the devices with the online the digital platform, which generates and send a code to unlock the system following customer payments and provides after-sales assistance. 

Our target is off-grid families in the last survey of Mozambican Electrical Grid Coverage the National Institute of Statistics and National Electrical Company of nº of accounts, estimates a total of 4 million households off-grid in the 11 country provinces, from a total of 5 million. Currently, there are around 2 million accounts with EDM. So the increase in accounts from 2015 (650 thousand), is approximately the increase in households, so the % Off-Grid is still a good indicator. About Mozambican split of expenses by Household (average), the last data survey in 2015 shows that expenses on Housing, Water, Gas, Electricity, and other fuel,  weights 25% of the total expenses (while 23% in 2008/2009). This group of expenses is the second highest item after Food and non-alcoholic drinks with 36%. That indicator shows the important allocation, based on off-grid households. 
Women and young people play are key partners to us,we believe that by increasing the household income, we can empower them and use their natural socioeconomic skills to change the community environment; 
They can help to overcome barriers by implementing a distribution model that involves proximity to reach our customer which can lead to increase individual and community wellbeing. 

By providing opportunities that empower people in these communities to access to electricity we are allowing;

1. education because their chilçdres can study and read at night; 
2. promote a safe environment inside the house;
3. Provide the opportunity for the entrepreneur to build a business or expand by working after sunset and diversify by charging phones, selling fresh goods which is provide by coolers, etc;
4. connectivity by enabling access radio/tv /social media wich enables people to be informed and exit seclusion. 

Small-scale, distributed solar home systems provide an effective and affordable way to brighten the lives off-grid communities.