Access to Energy via Digital Finance: Models for Innovation

This paper provides an overview of the digitally financed energy access sector, highlighting advancements in business models and product offerings. The focus of the paper is on businesses deploying pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar photovoltaic (PV) products using digitized payments and unique hardware to control the use of energy services. It states that while there are experiences combining digital finance with a wide range of energy technologies, PAYG solar PV products have by far the most market traction in terms of units sold, amount of time deployed, and number of countries with active sales. The paper covers the following sections in detail:

• Segmentation of solar energy technology used by PAYG companies with a focus on product types, examples, details, and companies providing such products;
• Current experiences with digital payments and off-grid solar energy;
• Segmentation of PAYG solar business models;
• Current financing and pricing models used by leading PAYG solar providers;
• Sales and distribution channels for reaching off-grid consumers;
• Analysis of trends and the future of PAYG solar energy.