Empowering Livelihoods: New Research on Off-grid Appliances and Equipment

The Clean Energy Solutions Center, in partnership with United Nations Foundation’s Energy Access Practitioner Network and the Efficiency for Access Coalition, hosted this webinar exploring the role of off-grid appliances and equipment in empowering resource-constrained communities. Webinar panelists discussed how energy poor consumers—especially those at the “bottom of the pyramid”—might tangibly benefit from the development, manufacture and marketing of highly efficient, off-grid-appropriate products that currently have varying use cases and degrees of market-readiness.

The conversation was anchored on two research products published recently by the Efficiency for Access Coalition:

• The Off-Grid Appliance Market Survey report, which showcases the perceived demand and socio-economic impact of a range of appliances suitable for household, productive use, and healthcare applications—based on a survey held jointly with the Practitioner Network earlier this year
• The Appliance Data Trends report, which showcases efficiency and cost analyses of off-grid TVs, fans and refrigerators.

The conversation was accompanied by preliminary results from a project led by Simusolar and supported by the Low Energy Inclusive Appliances Programme (LEIA) to share information about the solar water pump sector, including farmer segments and use cases, impacts, distribution models and financing across three regions in Tanzania.

The panelists reacted to the findings across the two reports, and they identified complementary threads across various themes for next steps, including productive uses and income generation, gender differentials, consumer protection and quality assurance, and socioeconomic impacts.

The webinar presentations were followed by an interactive question and answer session with the audience.