Pay-as-you-go Approaches (PAYGO)

Overview

Pay-as-you-go (PAYGO): Companies sell solar services or the solar products through a pre-paid model (in small instalments) to persons that can afford these services and become potential or actual customers. This article explains briefly how PAYGO works for customers and for the companies that offer this service.

• See also Fee-For-Service_or_Pay-As-You-Go_Concepts_for_Photovoltaic_Systems

Pay-as-you-go Approaches

Definition: PAYGO

Pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) is a digital financing technology that allows end-users to digitally pay for solar energy in weekly instalments. PAYGO is a pioneering, game-changing digital credit system that removes the initial financial barrier to solar energy access by allowing consumers to make a series of modest payments to purchase a week’s worth of solar energy rather than paying upfront for the entire solar lighting system.

PAYGO is emerging as a solution that addresses both end-customer affordability and provides sufficient margins to fuel operational models that can scale.

PAYGO companies can be divided into three groups:

1. distributed energy service companies (DESCO): they provide a given level of energy service in exchange for ongoing payments
2. asset finance or microloan providers: they offer rent-to-own models
3. business-to-business (B2B) intermediaries: supplying hardware and software support from global operations to last-mile energy service and payment logistics

The first PAYGO companies are vertically integrated companies (one-stop-shops). They do all steps:

• hardware and software design
• sales
• distribution
• service
• financing

While most of them have competencies in 3-4 areas, financing became a challenge for them. Expanding and scaling is hampered by two factors: As there are no financial intermediaries, currency risks are an obstacle to growth; and as customers pay within years, working capital is limited.

As a recent development, more mirco financing insitutions enter the market. See Market Overview: Disaggregating the PAYGO value chain.

PAYGO companies use a variety of combinations of payment systems:

• mobile money (40%)
• scratch cards and other options (60%).

They use enforcement mechanisms like remote GSM connections and keypad verification. Because most of them use mobile payments, PAYGO is cheaper than traditional microfinance options.

In the energy access sector, PAYGO approaches are mostly used to sell picoPV and SHS solar products, but also mini-grids can be operated implementing a PAYGO tariff.

How it Works: PAYGO for customers

Source: Winiecki et al. 2017.

Examples:

• The largest company in terms of scale is M-KOPA, which reached 500,000 SHS in April 2017.
• The Indigo Duo of Azuri consists of a power unit using a lithium iron phosphate battery, a 2.5W solar panel, two light points using LEDs, and adapters to enable the user to charge a phone. In Rwanda, the installation fee is RWF 6,600 (USD 9), and monthly payments of RWF 3,500 (USD 5). After those payments, the customer gets a code to make the unit usable. Without payments the system shuts down. After 21 months, customers own the system after paying one last single “unlock fee” of RWF 6,600 (USD 9).
• D.light customers in Kenya put a payment of USD 25 down, and continue with payments of 40 cents per day for a year via a choice of mobile money services (interest-free). The D30 off-grid home solar system is unlocked with the initial payment, remains unlocked as long as succeeding payments are made on time, and is unlocked in perpetuity once the system is paid for in full. Historically focused on cash sales, D.Light has raised a total of USD 22 million in 2016, primarily aiming to boost its PAYGO business.
• Mobisol’s solar systems comprise several ultra-efficient LED light sets, a portable lantern, mobile phone charger kit, large high-performance flat-screen LED TVs up to sizes of 32″, portable radio and balance-of-system components including wiring and switches. Customers get a three-year flexible payment plan via mobile money as well as extended warranties, free installation and free maintenance for three years.
• Ugandan Mobile Pay-Go Solar Provider Fenix International doubled the number of customers in the year 2016 to 100,000. Fenix deploys solar leases of over USD 20 million. Fenix’s ReadyPay Power high-efficiency solar products and services worth 1.2-MWs serve over 600,000 Ugandan households.
• Power Mundo in Peru is successfully implementing PAYG projects with support from ADB and others. The main aim of the project is to develop a distribution network for efficient, low cost off-grid picoPV and SHS energy products that residents in rural Peru can afford while at the same time creating local employment opportunities that can raise residents’ incomes.

Conclusion

This article offers a definition for PAYGO approaches and shortly explains how it works with examples from the major companies.

Further Information

• Financing and Funding Portal
• Fee-For-Service_or_Pay-As-You-Go_Concepts_for_Photovoltaic_Systems
• A list of relevant PAYGO companies and an in-depth explanation about PAYGO approaches: Bennu Solar Ltd. ‘PAYG Solar. Information on PAYG Enabled Solar Solutions |Bennu Solar’, 2017. http://bennu-solar.com/pay-as-you-go-enabled-solar-solutions/#.WYGhmFFLfIV.
• Lepicard, François, et Al. ‘REACHING SCALE IN ACCESS TO ENERGY: Lessons from Best Practitioners’. Hystra, 2017. https://www.gogla.org/sites/default/files/recource_docs/hystra_energy_report.pdf.
• Moreno, Alejandro, Asta Bareisaite, and others. ‘Scaling up Access to Electricity: Pay-as-You-Go Plans in off-Grid Energy Services’. The World Bank, 2015. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2015/03/02/000406484_20150302153117/Rendered/PDF/937860REPF0BRI0ries00000LW150340OKR.pdf.
• Lighting Global (2015): Alstone, Peter Michael. Connections beyond the Margins of the Power Grid Information Technology and the Evolution of Off-Grid Solar Electricity in the Developing World. University of California, Berkeley, 2015. http://search.proquest.com/openview/0a39e3cd025b0300cc030729278ccf1d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y.
• Winiecki, Jacob, and Kabir Kumar. ‘Access to Energy via Digital Finance: Overview of Models and Prospects for Innovation’. Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), Washington, DC, USA, 2014. http://www.fgda.org/dati/ContentManager/files/Documenti_microfinanza/Access-to-Energy-via-Digital-Finance.pdf. References