Finca to provide solar microfinance for 300,000 African households annually through 2019

Share

The momentum behind solar PV’s potential to leapfrog the provision of grid electricity in Africa is continuing to build with the latest announcement seeing a major microfinance provider stepping into the space. Finca International President and CEO Rupert Scofield yesterday announced an initiative that will see 300,000 households be provided with solar microfinance solutions annually through to 2019.

"Access to energy is essential to help people live more comfortable lives and to become more productive," said FInca’s Scofield. "Access to clean energy is even better. But the financing piece of this puzzle – both for low-income consumers and off-grid energy providers – is often a reason that markets don't get going.” He added that Finca’s 30 years in microfinance and knowledge of the market will assist the company in rolling out the program.

Washington DC-based Finca owns or operates a number of microfinance institutions and has financed more than two million entrepreneurs and communities in 23 countries.

Finca made its announcement at the White House Forum on Catalyzing Markets for Off-Grid Clean Energy Access yesterday. The finance provider will support local entrepreneurs and social enterprises to rollout off-grid solar in Africa.

Participants in the White House Forum are set to sign the Global Lighting and Energy Access Partnerships (Global LEAP) initiative aimed at ensuring off and micro-grid quality assurance.

Finca reports that the provision of solar systems and lanterns result in improved respiratory and eye health outcomes along with the societal benefits delivered by the provision of lighting for education and savings on energy costs. Expensive, polluting and unsafe kerosene lighting is still relied on by many offgrid communities, including some 200 million households in Africa.

A large number of innovative solar off-grid products are currently been rolled out in Africa and beyond. These include solar light and phone charging project Little Sun, spearheaded by prominent artist Olarfur Elliason, autonomous PV hub provider Solar Kiosk and recent First Solar acquisition Powerhive. The three companies were featured in the Off-grid, on message feature article in the October edition of pv magazine.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Longi introduces 665 W HPBC photovoltaic modules

11 October 2024 The Chinese PV manufacturer said its new module series has a power conversion efficiency of up to 24.8% and temperature coefficient is -0.26% per C.

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.