Ashden Awards for clean energy; winners from India, Africa

Winner of Outstanding Achievement Award 2007

from www.AshdenAwards.org


SELCO-India. Making solar energy affordable yet commercially viable

SELCO is a private business, based in Bangalore, which provides solar-home-systems (SHS) and other solar services to low-income households and institutions. Its network of local sales and service centres are set up where micro-finance organisations can provide loans to customers. All systems are sold on a commercial basis, but SELCO is committed to providing the highest quality services to poor people on financial terms they can afford.

SELCO used the 2005 Ashden Award to create an innovation department, establish new partnership arrangements with microfinance organisations, develop a five-year business plan with the aim of reaching an additional 200,000 customers by 2010, and set up a pilot fund to guarantee the deposits on solar systems for very poor households.

Since 2005 its total sales of SHS have increased from 48,000 to 71,000, despite a 50% increase in the price of small photovoltaic modules on the world market. Four new service centres have been opened, including one run jointly with the influential Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) bank in Gujarat, in which PV systems and finance can be arranged together for bank customers, mainly self-employed women. The centres are now starting to provide a wider range of energy services rather than just solar systems including improved cooking stoves.

The work of SELCO has become widely known. Its managing director, Harish Hande, has been invited to lecture on the SELCO business model at business schools in the USA, India and Singapore, and advises international finance and development agencies.