Winning the cosmic bet
As an an entrepreneur, you sometimes meet people who genuinely want to look out for you. In an attempt to lower your risk of a resounding failure, they try to convince you to be reasonable and go easy on your ambition. They think they are being nice but here’s why I don’t listen.
I’m an optimist. Let me rephrase that. I’m actually a realistic believer. Here are 3 reasons that tell me things are looking bright.
Cosmic Opportunity
I started Power:On because 1.3 billion people still lack access to electricity in the world today. This is astounding to me.
Even more incredible is the fact that these people very often live in areas that possess tremendous renewable energy resources. The great opportunity that this energy represents is just not exploited.
Let’s take solar energy. In a single day, the Earth receives from the sun 30 times more energy than all of mankind consumes in a year. As we can see above, developing countries with serious electricity deficit receive the largest amount of that energy. It may be that the cosmos is actually trying to tell us something here.
Building the Case
Did you know that electricity access was not originally part of the Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2000? Its benefits are however potentially enormous. And in fact, electricity access could lead to reaching many of those MDGs. It can dramatically improve the living conditions of the poorest people on the planet and trigger economic development to lift them out of poverty.
Don’t take my word for it. Here is what people from Igbérè, the first village to access electricity thanks to Power:On, have to say:
Health
« Some things are complicated in the village, so you have to do what you can to help. I am a midwife and also occasionally help NGOs running malaria programs for children. I love my job, but I don’t always get paid. And since I lost my husband, my kids and I only make it thanks to my family’s support. But in spite of all this, I am glad today, because with electricity I don’t have to help women give birth in the middle of the night with only a flashlight anymore. In the future, I’d like to build a building especially for this. But I don’t have the resources right now… »
Replacing traditional cooking and lighting methods, principally burning biomass and fossil fuels, with electricity could also reduce toxic smoke inhalation, which causes over 1.6 million deaths per year.
Education
« I am in 6th grade at the village’s middle school, which is about 1km from home. I live at my dad Ibrahim’s house. I really like the village now that there is electricity. It is way easier to do my homework with the lights on! I need to work hard because when I grow up I want to take the exam to be in the military, their uniforms are so cool! »
Studies have also shown that in households equipped with TV, women were more aware of basic hygiene and family planning practices.
Economic development
« At first I had a sewing shop that I also used to sell a few products every once in a while. Then I decided to focus only on the grocery store. Thanks to the savings account managed by Igbérè’s women, I was able to grow my business and sell a lot of things: tomato paste, bouillon cube, biscuits, and also alcohol, beer, onions, pepper powder, gari, etc. My family and I make a good living. I have three kids, the first two are in middle school and the last one is too little to go to school. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to explain how much electricity changed my life and the whole village. Just look at my shop: now I have a fridge and customers from 6pm to 11:30pm. Before that, they never stayed later than 6:30pm. I can also watch the news and some movies at home… Soon I’m going to extend my store to sell even more things, and I’ll open a big bar. »
Previous experiences of rural electrification also indicate that supplying lights and allowing children to study more creates a great potential income gain for families — even greater than electric uses that generate income directly. In Bangladesh, incomes increased up to 30% following electrification, mostly due to higher educational attainment.
So electricity has indeed a huge impact. But the real bet that I wanted to make was in believing that it could be achieved in a sustainable and profitable manner.
But I can’t just say that Power:On has found the solution, solving the issue for 1.3 billion people. I had to start building a case. So concretely, how have things been going?
Our grid has been live for one year now. It reached operational breakeven from the start, even though we only operate 5 hours a day with a sub-optimal Diesel-based solution.
This shows we are on the right track. And we have A LOT of room to improve.
Our next move is to launch a crowdfunding campaign to upgrade to an optimized solar-hybrid plant and operate 24/7. When we’ve done this, we’ll have a very good business that we can replicate throughout remote villages.
Historical trend
Despite all this, I still meet people who have their doubts. Will our minigrids really be profitable? Will electricity really trigger economic development and lift people out of poverty?
These aren’t unreasonable questions. But we’ve gotten good evidence in our first year of operations.
And if that’s not enough to persuade you, let’s take a wider perspective. Hans Rosling is one of the best people to listen to on this topic — just check out this TED talk. It’s brilliant and mind-opening, with just a dash of crazy…
Data tells us things are heading in the right direction. So the question is not if people will actually get out of poverty and find a way to create wealth. The question is: from whom will they buy energy to do it?
