Vijaya Kumari, a widow from Nagapattinam, earned her living by doing other people’s laundry. That was till the December 2004 tsunami changed the tide. Her business was badly affected. To rehabilitate her, an NGO, HelpAge, gave her a push-cart and iron— a package worth Rs 7,500.
Yet, she would have to wind up at sunset for lack of electricity and found it difficult to use the traditional petromax lamp.
With the help of Cosmos Ignite, HelpAge gave her a solar lantern, christened MightyLight. Kumari now charges the light during the day and uses it at night to earn more, while her children get to study after sunset, too.
MightyLight is a solar-powered device which uses Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology rated to last for over 30 years if used for four hours daily. Combined with solar energy, it is designed to be a waterproof, shockproof and multiple-function lamp that can be used as a room light, reading lamp or flashlight.
For instance, fishermen use MightyLight since it’s “break-proof and can float in the sea”, explains Amit Chugh, CEO and co-founder of Cosmos Ignite. He claims his solar lantern emits 20 times the light of kerosene. Starting with a price of Rs 1,500 for the lamp plus Rs 1,000 for the solar panel, Cosmos Ignite has managed to reduce the price to Rs 1,250 for the lamp and Rs 750 for the panel.
“More than a third of the world’s people live without access to electricity. Millions of homes in India and around the world are left to the mercy of dim light from dangerous, polluting and expensive-to-use kerosene oil lamps,” explains Chugh.
Around 400 million people in India use kerosene as their primary source of lighting. Globally, over 1.6 billion people spend up to $20 (around Rs 1,000) per month on just kerosene, which has wider health, environmental and social costs. Its smoke contains ‘a nasty mix of particulates, carbon monoxide and carcinogenic gases’. In 80,000 remote villages in India, the only lighting available is kerosene-based. And around 18,000 very remote/tribal villages don’t ever stand a chance of grid connectivity.
Chugh, however, is now moving beyond lanterns. “People do not want solar lanterns. What they need is electricity. The device hardly matters,” he asserts. He should know, having sold over 130,000 solar lanterns to rural folk in India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Panama, Guyana and Colombia over the last four to five years.
He’s also planning to raise money from venture capitalists (VCs) to fund what he terms ‘micro-energy’ kiosks. “There are hundreds of thousands of common service centres (CSCs) which have been set up by the government in partnership with companies. However, these CSCs are yet to devise a sound business model. We are in the process of partnering with the owners of many such CSCs to retail our suite of energy-efficient products,” says Chugh.
Cosmos Ignite will offer a suite of solar products ranging from Rs 250 for a solar torch to around Rs 5,000 for a solar pump. These products, says Chugh, can be bought off the shelf or even rented. Chugh will have a revenue-sharing agreement with the owners of the CSCs. He later plans to extend the concept to even the country’s metros and A-class cities and towns.
Most parts of India enjoy nearly 300 sunny days a year, note analysts, so solar power makes immense sense. However, the cost of generation using solar photovoltaic (PV) has to come down to make it economically viable. The estimated unit cost of generation of electricity from solar PV ranges from Rs 12-20 per kWh in India. The government subsidises the difference between the generation cost and the cost at which the State Electricity Board (SEB) buys solar power.
Chugh, however, does not believe in government subsidy or the ‘not for profit’ model either— and this despite the fact that MightyLight has become integrated into numerous international projects by NGOs, the UN and World Bank. Cosmos Ignite instead prefers to call its business model ‘social entrepreneurship’.
