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Outgrowing the Flower Pot: Why Just Selling Productive Equipment to Smallholder Farmers is Not Enough
A new wave of companies are bringing equipment powered by renewable, decentralized energy to smallholders, and these devices can significantly boost farmers' yields and product quality. But as Daniel Waldron, Christopher Emmott, Priyanka Dudeja, Paraag Sabhlok and Chris Wayne at Acumen explain, just like a tree growing in a flower pot, this new growth can become a burden if it has nowhere to go. They argue that productive equipment must be combined with market access interventions to truly benefit smallholders, and highlight two innovative companies that are demonstrating the impact of this approach.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Press Release: New Roadmap Says Minigrid Industry Needs 10 Companies with 10 Times Current Scale to Achieve Universal Energy Access and SDG7
Husk Power Systems released the first-ever industry roadmap for minigrid developers for achieving scale and sustainability.
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Press Release: CLASP & Nithio, With Support From the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, Launch Financing Facility for Productive Use Appliances
Access to productive use appliances can deliver significant economic, health, education, and quality of life benefits.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: Small Electric Vehicles Can Act as Productive Use of Energy Catalysts for Rural Minigrids
Minigrids can power two and three-wheeled electric vehicles at a matching price with fossil-fuel alternatives.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Access Alone is Not Enough: Why a Holistic Approach is Necessary to Develop Lasting Energy Solutions
With about 800 million people lacking reliable electricity, energy access is one of the defining issues – and opportunities – of our time. According to Peter Weston at Energy 4 Impact and David Nicholson at Mercy Corps, that's what drove the recent merger of their two organizations. But as they explain, to unlock the full impact of energy access, it's important to ensure that people, businesses and communities can capitalize on it. They explore how a comprehensive market system approach can produce energy solutions that work for farmers, entrepreneurs and others.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment
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Productive Use of Energy in Africa Is Powering Socio-economic Transformation While Offering Investment Opportunities
The programme enables African businesses to harness clean energy to improve incomes, build climate resilience and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Beyond Energy Efficiency: Key Trends and Pathways to Scale in the Solar Appliance Market
Solar appliance uptake is a key element of global energy access efforts. But according to Yasemin Erboy Ruff and Lauren Boucher at CLASP, no appliance is close to reaching market saturation, despite considerable gains in recent years. They share highlights from Efficiency for Access' 2021 Solar Appliance Technology Briefs, which characterize the market, trends and pathways to scale for 11 off-grid-appropriate solar appliances and enabling technologies, and explore what these findings mean for the solar appliance market and the customers it serves.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Technology
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The Nexus of Agriculture and Energy in Africa: Five Lessons for Bridging the Ag-Energy Gap
Agriculture should be a key market for rural energy providers in Africa. Growing agribusinesses and smallholder farmers need modern energy to thrive, and rural energy enterprises need reliable consumers to anchor demand for their services. Yet as Seth Silverman and Tom Chaplin at Factor[e] Ventures explain, a gap remains between the two industries, and ag-energy projects struggle to draw commercial investment. They explore some promising ways to fill that gap, sharing lessons from a new report.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy
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