Solar: Affordable Power in Nigeria and Africa:Case Study-Pay as You Go Solar Home Systems -Lumos-Part 6
The Netherlands based company Nova Lumos developed a mobile-enabled energy service with MTN Nigeria; MTN Mobile Electricity.
MTN Mobile Electricity offers customers in Nigeria a Solar Home System Kit (80W Solar panel, solar indoor unit, 2 LED bulbs, DC to AC converter); through a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model.
This model enables payments through mobile airtime and remote monitoring of the system.
The target customers are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES) and residential homes that use small petrol generators.
Lumos offers a ‘Lease to ownership’ model, were rather than an upfront payment of N300,000($833) customers pay a base fee of N26,000($72) and N4500($13) subscription per month. After the full payment is complete within five years, the device then belongs to the customer.
Lumos partnership with MTN has enabled them leverage MTN’s mobile market share in Nigeria, warehousing, distribution system and Customer service.
MTN is compensated through a revenue share agreement. This has enabled the service successfully scale across Nigeria. As at March 2018, the company has close to 90,000 active subscribers.
This case study shows how a Solar Home System company can partner with a mobile operator and quickly deploy and scale successfully.
Next Case Study is a Solar Mini-Grid project.
Thank you for reading,
Nero
