In this issue:

• Solutions for poor-

ers in Bangladesh

• Presenta tion of

Grameen Shakti

• First Workshops in

Bangladesh and In-donesia

Follow up RENDEV on

the web : www.rendev.org

Contact us:

contact@rendev.org

RENDEV is a project

sponsored by the Euro-pean Commission -

EACI : Execu ti ve Agency for Competitive-

ness and Innovation for-merly known as Intelli-

gent Energy Europa Agency and Toyota Tsu-

sho Corporation. RENDEV aims to create

the conditions of large access to Renewable

Energies (REN) for rural population such as :

awareness of population on possibility and af-

fordability of REN tech-nologies, capacitie s

among stakeholders and private providers, accu-

rate financial schemes. RENDEV will especially

focus on possibilities of MicroFinance in those

Microfinance and Access to Energy:

Major Opportunities for Sustainable Development

Newsletter n°3 - July 2008

In our days of rising oil prices, looking for

substituting energies for rural people be-

come a day to day emergency. In Janu-

ary, Rendev teams went to Nusa Teng-

gara Timur in Pulau Rote and Gorontalo

province in North Sulawesi, both Indone-

sian’s remote provinces. In any single

vil lage visited by our team people were

complaining about rising prices of kero-

sene, the dirty fuel, most of rural people

sti ll rely on for lighting. The price they

were paying range from 4 000 to 6000

IDR, less than 0,5 € per l iter thanks to

Indonesian generous subsidy policy.

Nowadays, prices have already risen by

20 % and Indonesian government has no

choices than cutting the subsidies be-

cause of global rising prices if it does not

want its budget to collapse. Actually, it

means that most of these families will not

have the resources to pay for kerosene anymore and they will not even be able to use old-

fashioned storm lamps.

On the other hand, here is the fantastic opportunities for renewable energy promoters to

show the accuracy of small energy solutions to answer to people basic needs at a reason-

able cost. Rendev team and partners are exploring and implementing on the field solutions

people can pay for, from the tiny 1 W solar lantern to the rural designed 100 Wp Solar Home

System. Under that range of product people can chose to pay from a few eurocents per day

and benefit a bit of up to date technologies such as LED and CFL lamps, enhanced battery

designs and Solar Photovoltaics Industry’s improvement. As the world will think about how to

reduce its oil consumption, we will advocate for those who nobody never think about, the one

that are currently using such few oil that they are not part of the big picture.

During the two workshops organized by RENDEV’s partner Grameen Shakti in Bangladesh

on May, the 15th and YBUL in Indonesia on June, the 18th, the discussions were very ani-

mated and innovative ideas suggested to policy makers in order to implement solutions. The

RENDEV team will build on this proposals to shape tools promoting Renewable Energies

Solutions for low income people.

The RENDEV team

SHS in Singair, Bangladesh - Credits : Planet Finance

Reaching the poorer : solutions experimented in Bangladesh

Achievements so far

Under the first and successful IDCOL pro-

gram, more than 100,000 SHS were in-

stalled by IDCOL’s Partner organizations,

but program requirements make impossi-

ble to propose systems with instalments

lower than 15 USD per month. When a

good wage for a daily worker in the rice

fields during harvest season ranges

around 100 Tk, eg 1 €, one can think Solar

Home System are not for them. Bangla-

deshi don’t and RENDEV’s partner even

less. Supported by the german technical

assistance agency, GTZ, leading organi-

zations such as UBOMUS and Grameen

Shakti looked for alternative solutions

Technical solutions : go smaller

When the World Bank designed its RERDEP

program, rural electrification experts decided

than lower than 40 Wp, the system will not

offer sufficient services and therefore they

define a lower Wp level in the allocation of

subsidies and soft loan. Therefore IDCOL

reproduced the rules and POs were not pro-

moting such small systems. As a result,

poorer Bangladeshi were not able to benefit

from the program. In the meantime, en-

hancement in lamp manufacturing have pro-

duced new devices such as LED lamps pro-

viding a good focused light, and it appears

to the, always poor dedicated, Bangladeshi

organization that there is a market for

smaller systems. After consequent efforts to

overcome technical issues such as solar

modules life length, they are now coming to

the market with SSHS : Small Solar Home System.

As awareness on this new product is low, as poor people

still look at solar as an expensive product, as people don’t

know what you can do with this system and what you still

can’t expect, RENDEV’s team will focus it efforts in Bangla-

desh on promoting SSHS at the grass root levels in two dif-

ferent pilot districts.

RENDEV’s partner PSL and Grameen Shakti are developing

a new special training module to explain the possibilities to

the population and will start their awareness campaign dur-

ing the coming semester.

Usage : Very basic lighting

Devices Two to three LEDs

Power 10 to 16 Wp

Cost 8 000 To 12 000 Tk (80 to 120 €)

Price From 300 Tk per month (3 €)

SSHS Program brief

A microentrepreneur benefiting of SHS in Singair, Bangladesh Credits : Pl anet Finance

A microentrepreneur benefiting of SHS in Singair, Bangladesh Credits : Pl anet Finance

Social solution : share the system

Grameen Shakti, the ever energy for the rural

promoting company, designed another solution,

based on the current SHS program. Aiming at

night markets and microentrepreneurs, Grameen

Shakti designed the Micro-utility : one microen-

trepreneur owns the system and rent one lamp

to two or three of its neighbour for only 180

Takas a month. It is becoming very popular in

Singair market where it has been experimented.

Rendev will participate to the promotion of solar

utilty in the markets of two new districts.

What about a Light Lady?

Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has become famous all over the world as a promoter of social entrepreneurship

among women and specially women member of the Grameen Bank organization. Experiences such as the Phone

Lady have changed the daily life of rural Bangladeshi. Now when people have to call one of their relatives any-

where in the country or even abroad, they just have to go to the Phone Lady and use her phone paying just for

their connection on a minute fee. It means that they can call whenever they can afford it. This very successful

model has spread modern communication technology to all the remote village of Bangladesh. Why not using that

k ind of pay for fee model for providing light to

Bangladeshis at a very low cost.

Light for the poor

When studying habits of consumption on kero-

sene which is the most popular fuel for lighting

in both rural Bangladesh and Indonesia, it ap-

pears that customer s are buying their fuel on a

daily basis according to what they can afford to

pay. In the bad times, people will reduce dra-

matically their consumption to save money for

food. Here we enlighten a common challenge for

microfinance: how to match credit instalments

with borrower incomes. As RENDEV is looking for

solutions for the poorer, we look for solution of-

fering the same flex ibility than buying kerosene

or candles, a system in which people can pay for

their daily need on a consumption basis.

The concept

In the v illage, a microentrepreneur, the Light Lady, owns a SHS which she uses to charge solar lanterns. People

go to her place every night to take their lantern for the night and pay just for the charge. This very flexible sys-

tem allows even the poorer people to benefit of clear electric light even for only a few hours per day. Simulations

made by the team showed that it is possible to reach the price of subsidized kerosene lamps. As kerosene price

will rise during the coming years, the solar lantern model will become always comparatively cheaper. We can

ever expect to reach prices lower than 10 Tk per charge.

Woman in Singair, Bangladesh Credits : Planet Finance

Grameen Shakti : Bringing Light, Energy , Health & income to the Rural People

Grameen Shakti was set up in 1996 to reach the rural people with renewable energy

technologies to improve their quality of l ives. It has been very successful in this regard.

Grameen Shakti, under its Managing Director Dipal Barua, has installed more than

1700,000 solar home systems in rural Bangladesh , bringing light , energy , health and

income to more than one million rural people . It has shown that solar energy applications

including other renewables can be scaled up massively and rapidly to provide an affordable and climate-friendly

energy option for the rural people .

The key to the company’s success is an integrated model that uses soft credit and ties the technology with income

generation to lower costs and most importantly ensures effective after-sales service at the grassroots level

through the creation of entrepreneurs and technicians. It is creating green jobs and a green economy to drive its

program forward. Grameen Shakti has recruited, trained and deployed more than 1000 engineers through its

more than 400 offices spread all over Bangladesh.

Grameen Shakti has a vision to create one hundred thousand Green Jobs in the rural areas by 2015. Through

rural entrepreneurs and green jobs , GS plans to install one million solar home systems and 5 hundred thousand

biogas plants and 10 million improved cooking stoves by 2012.

Grameen Shakti and RENDEV

For Grameen Shakti, RENDEV is an opportunity to reinforce the skil ls and build capacities in Bangladesh. It is very

important for a further expansion of Renewable Energy services in Bangladesh that policy makers especially un-

derstand the possibilities of Renewable Energy for our country and especially how Renewable Energies have to be

part of the strategy to fight against poverty in Bangladesh.

Workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 19 2008 - Credits : Grameen Shakti