Off-grid energy solutions continue to take hold in Uganda, though 30% of the population is still expected to lack access to electricity by 2030. Affordability remains a challenge to the uptake of off-grid energy. Increased ‘productive use’ of energy has the potential to increase productivity and income, thereby driving further uptake in off-grid energy. These…
The POWERED accelerator programme is part of the wider POWERED programme launched by Shell Foundation, the UK Government and DST Government of India in 2017. The accelerator programme supports social enterprises to expand their businesses and, by doing so, increases economic empowerment of women-owned businesses in the Indian energy space. This learning report was produced…
How does productive use biogas appliance innovation contribute to increased energy access, to rural livelihoods and to the development of biogas as a utility? Smallholder farmers are among some of the most disadvantaged people in the developing world, without access to technology, training and financing to improve productivity. There are an estimated 570 million smallholder…
Ethiopia is the world’s third largest potential market for solar products but also one of the most challenging. PAYGO solar product providers have traditionally found it difficult to penetrate the 60 million people off-grid population lacking access to energy due to several factors: A complex regulatory environment low mobile money penetration (one of the lowest…
Shell Foundation partner, Shortlist, has produced a learning report which addresses the need to think about gender inclusion when hiring staff in India. The report talks about the concern in India about lost economic growth and development benefits due to low female labour force participation. The low rate seems to be explained in part by challenges in finding…
Aceleron has undertaken two projects with another of our partners, Bboxx, to investigate the viability of replacing lead-acid batteries currently in use with Aceleron’s advanced Li-ion offering. The Bboxx pilot has demonstrated the ability for Aceleron to successfully build and deploy advanced Li-ion batteries that are fit for purpose and have a number of advantages…
The latest Uganda Energy Off-grid Market Accelerator (UOMA) report focuses on innovative models that can leverage digital financial services to accelerate access to energy. Increased mobile phone technology and digital services have created an array of new business models and opportunities for off-grid energy and this report looks at how digital financial services haves helped…
The Uganda Off-Grid Energy Market Accelerator (UOMA) is a neutral intermediary focused on accelerating the growth of off-grid energy access in Uganda to enable universal energy access. SF co-created UOMA in 2017 in partnership with USAID, Power Africa and the UK Government, to be implemented by Open Capital Advisors, a management consultancy headquartered in Nairobi,…
In 2014, around 80% of Uganda’s population, or approximately 30.9 million people, lacked access to the grid network and in rural areas the electrification rate was as low as 10%. Grid extension is often not a financially viable option for areas sparsely populated or hard to reach and off-grid energy solutions, like solar home systems…
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the lifeblood of most economies, and especially the Indian economy. In India, over 42 million SMEs comprise a staggering 95% of the total industrial business entities in the country, employing about 40% of India’s workforce and generating nearly a quarter of service sector GDP. With one million people entering…