Top three benefits:
- Earn higher margins on more expensive appliances.
- Fulfil a growing demand among customers as appliances powered by fossil fuels become less economical.
- Positively impact livelihoods of rural customers as they use the appliances to generate more income.
Top three challenges:
- Procurement of these products can be more challenging.
- Selling PUE might require specialised sales teams and after-sales support that is more complex and costly.
- Consumer finance models might lead to mixed results based on experiences of last mile distributors to date.
Photo credit: Mwezi
Trailblazers:
- GDC members Solar Sister, Village Infrastructure Angels, VITALITE Zambia and EnerGrow share first-hand insights of selling PUE products (watch webinar)
- ECOTECH distributes solar irrigation systems and other climate smart PUE solutions in Zambia.
- Mwezi (former GDC member) added (solar) drip irrigation to their portfolio and developed a How-to-guide, with support of the GDC.
- Let us know who else should be on this list
Resources:
- GDC report with lessons learned from 13 last mile distributors that have experience of testing or selling productive use of energy (PUE) products.
- Efficiency for Access is promoting high-performing appliances that enable access to clean energy for low-income consumers.
- An assessment of the market opportunity for PUE products presented by Lighting Global and others.
- Nefco conducted a study to explore opportunities to expand BGFA’s existing PUE activities in this report.
- An Energypedia list with PUE products that use solar power as an energy source in agrifood systems.