About
2017 Fire Awards Finalist
In addition to being selected as a 2017 Fire Awards Finalist, Solar Agro-Processing Stations was also shortlisted for the 2016-2017 India Lab cycle.
Champion
Stewart Craine, Managing Director, Village Infrastructure Angels
About
1.2 billion people lack access to electricity and other poverty-alleviating infrastructure, such as clean water for drinking, irrigation and affordable housing. Grid expansion is not happening fast enough and barely keeps pace with population growth rates. Pay-as-you-go solar is a recognized solution, but focusses on lighting, mobile phones and TVs. Agro-processing by the off-grid poor is currently either performed by dirty and expensive diesel-fueled 2-5 kW mills, or manually, by hand, often by women.
Community-scale solar-powered agro-processing mills are a clean and efficient solution that frees communities’ time (particularly women’s time) for other, potentially revenue generating, activities.
Barriers Addressed
- Lack of access to finance in rural off-grid areas
- Lack of access to infrastructure and dependence on fossil fuels
- Perceived technology risks of infrastructure.
Approach
Centralized community-scale DC power stations of 0.5-5kW are made available to run micro agro-processing mils like rice hullers, corn shellers, flour grinders and more. Village Infrastructure Angels (VIA) map the location of off-grid households and combine this with additional market data to identify optimum sites for deployment. VIA then assess villagers’ demand for 3-5 year lease-purchase financing packages for appropriate technologies. With this demand defined by villagers, VIA pitch the project to impact and clean-tech investors. Real-time monitoring systems enable rich monitoring data and billing.
BNEF On-Stage Pitch
Details
Invest
Key Impact Metrics
- Solar power delivered per household: 20-100W
- Increase in agro-processing productivity using solar mills vs. manual processing: up to 2000%
- Number of off-grid households targeted by 2020: 200,000
News & Events
Four instruments move forward to drive investment for green growth in India
June 21, 2017The India Innovation Lab for Green Finance – a group of public and private investors and finance experts on clean energy and green growth in India – continues to make progress on analysis and development of four innovative ideas for green finance instruments, with the aim of launching them for implementation in the fall of […]
New class of transformative green finance instruments for India
March 27, 2017New Delhi – The India Innovation Lab for Green Finance has selected three new ideas for green finance instruments to move forward for further analysis, development, and preparation for piloting. The new instruments for the India Lab’s 2016-2017 cycle could help catalyze millions of dollars for clean energy and sustainable urbanization in India. Through an […]
The 2017 Fire Awards Winners Target Clean Energy And Sustainable Transit
April 25, 2017New York – Today at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Future of Energy Summit, hundreds of leaders in clean energy and finance voted for two Fire Awards winners from amongst four finalists that presented their businesses in an extremely close pitch competition. The two winners are: Electric Bus Battery Service Agreements: A new lease financing model to lower […]
The Fire Awards Announce Four Finalists
December 6, 2016December 6, 2016 London – The Fire Awards have announced the selection of four finalists to pitch their financial innovations for the acceleration of green growth at the annual Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future of Energy Summit in April 2017. The four finalists were selected by the Fire Advisory Panel, consisting of experts in finance, […]
Contact
Stewart Craine
Village Infrastructure Angels
stewart@villageinfrastructure.org