Greenlight Planet’s mission is to bring life-changing technology solutions to developing world households. We design and distribute solar-powered lanterns to villagers in rural India and Africa: remarkably useful products that change lives but are expensive by local standards and as such require more "push" in the absence of consumer "pull."

We’ve built a disruptive sales and distribution network comprising of massive, efficient sales force of trusted, local agents, who we call "Saathis”, who evangelize our award-winning Sun King™ solar lantern and build trust in our brand.

Milestones:

•Since our commercial launch in 2009, we have now brought solar lanterns to millions of people
•Our products are available in over 20 countries globally managed out of our offices in India, Kenya and China.
•Over the next 3 years, we expect to scale 40X to penetrate deeper in both India and Africa.

While we have focused on the Sun King™ line of solar lighting products; constantly innovating to make it useful and affordable to our BoP customers, our business doesn't just represent innovation in the solar products space. We’re pioneering a revolution in rural, last-mile distribution with enormous implication, and broad commercial opportunity, for BoP products (clean cook stoves, water purifiers etc) across industries.

Problem

Over 1.5 billion of the world’s population live without access to electricity, with India and Africa accounting for a major share of the un-electrified. India alone has more than 300 million people who still continue to live without electricity. This mounting energy crisis is acute among the world’s poor, the majority of whom still rely on inefficient (light emitted from kerosene lamps is dim and of very poor quality), polluting (the World Bank estimates that the environmental effect of 1.6 billion people using kerosene fuel and candles contributes to global carbon emissions at a rate of 100-150 million tons per year), expensive (the poor spend approximately 10-15% of their meagre household income on recurring fuel expenses) and dangerous (according to a WHO study, nearly 2 million people die prematurely from illnesses attributable to indoor air pollution and In India alone, 2.5 million people suffer severe burns due to overturned kerosene lamps annually) fuels like kerosene, candles and firewood for their daily lighting and household needs. Undoubtedly, grid expansion is an ideal long term solution for many un-electrified households, but decades will pass before such a solution comes to fruition.Given the impending global energy crisis and the currently available inefficient and flawed traditional lighting options like kerosene, there is an urgent and growing need for a clean, efficient and ultra-affordable lighting alternative to meet this ambitious lighting imperative.

Solution

Greenlight Planet designs and distributes solar-powered lanterns to villagers in India and Africa who still have no access to electricity. Our two-fold innovation encompasses: Cutting-edge Products: We draw from a rich understanding of our users through years of experience working in the energy space in rural India, to design products that are ultra-affordable, durable and optimally useful in tough rural environments. Millions of people in Asia and Africa spanning more than 20 countries are currently using our products since our launch in 2009. Our products have been recognized by many international organization like IFC. Game changing distribution network: We’ve reorganized the sales and distribution channel to dramatically increase reach, rapidly scale sales, and establish a persistent channel to customers in previously untapped markets, and at far lower costs, than traditional distribution channels. We task the selling function to rural micro-entrepreneurs who earn a strong supplementary income by selling our products in their local communities. They become our proprietary marketing and sales engine and leverage their local relationships and trust networks to actively sell, effectively convert customers and physically deliver products to their homes at incredibly low cost. We put the money saved by these channel efficiencies into the products, which enables us to build higher-quality products at ultra-affordable prices, and push them much deeper than anyone else.

Example

Innovative Products and technology: When we started, we focused exclusively on designing a better lighting product for the world’s 1.6 billion off-grid poor who use dirty, dangerous and expensive fuels like kerosene. Existing products were too expensive to be affordable, or too poor in quality to be accepted by villagers, many of whom earn less than $2 a day. We focused intensely on redefining what quality and price could be in the BoP solar light space: Our Sun King™ solar lantern is the lowest solar light available actually appropriate for lighting a villager’s entire home. Where alternative products use ten to twelve month NiCad or Lead Acid batteries, we’re the first to use Lithium Ferro Phosphate battery technology, which ensure villagers can use their light for 5 years before requiring a battery replacement. Our product efforts have been have been validated in our first place award in the World Bank and IFC’s global solar home lighting product quality evaluation in 2010, which cites our achievements in unprecedented longevity and price value performance. We constantly solicit and incorporate customer feedback and learnings from the ground during the R&D process to develop customer-centric products. Due to this approach, we have been able to design and disseminate our award winning Sun King solar lanterns to millions of people across Asia and Africa spanning more than 20 countries. Innovative distribution and partnership network: To expand our reach across the massive under-served ‘off-grid’ population’ densely concentrated in India and Africa, Greenlight Planet has been implementing a two-fold distribution and partnership strategy: 1. We have developed our own innovative proprietary sales and distribution network called the DTV network (direct to village). Through this channel, we are enticing and training thousands of villagers - rural farmers, teachers, daily wage workers, unemployed manpower, housewives etc - to become educators and dealers of solar lights: Income-earners in rural India have limited opportunities, and the selectees respond with intense energy to our vehicle for upward economic mobility. They become our self-driven and proprietary marketing and sales engine, deeply entrenched in local communities and in the process these individuals climb social and economic ladders, earning strongly by explaining a concept-heavy consumer durable to people in their local communities, and delivering the products at the customers’ door steps 2. To increase our global presence, we work with a number of established local partners who are well entrenched in their local communities. We’re leveraging their expertise as they best understand the local business environment and customer preferences while we gain deeper understanding of the market. The partnerships may span across philanthropic organizations/CSR programs, development sector organizations, distributors, informal retail, Aid based organizations, NGOs, MFIs, distributors with strong liaison with government etc. On our part, we provide our award winning products, our market insights, strategies and learnings developed from our work in India to enable our partners to succeed in their own markets. The partners are responsible for the on-the-ground operations and implementation of the marketing strategies. We have now established partnerships across 14 African countries resulting in dissemination of hundreds of thousands of our solar lights across Africa. Thus, our business doesn’t just represent innovation in the solar products space. We’re pioneering a revolution in rural, last-mile distribution with enormous implication, and broad commercial opportunity, for bottom of the pyramid products across industries.

Marketplace

1. Rural mini-grid solutions: A number of diesel or bio-fuel powered micro-grid electricity have begun delivering power in rural India through a string of village-level generation plants. In many cases, these companies employ novel technology, yet their viability is severely limited by the sheer number of generation plants needed to service even a portion of the market. 2. Other mass-market solar products (<$50): The few players dedicated to this space are small companies and a multitude of cheap China based exporters. The majority of these existing players compromise on durability and longevity to achieve ultra-low product cost. This approach is untenable for most Indian villagers, who expect sustained performance for years under daily use in inherently tough environmental conditions. 3. Up-market solar home products (>$50): This group of companies target the wealthiest 5% of rural households with lights priced at $50 and up, often over $400. They often employ consultative selling and hard asset-backed bank-financing. This is an increasingly crowded space serving a limited-population of potential customers: Not our market. Greenlight Planet specifically caters to low-income masses with our high-quality award winning and affordable solar products, employing an innovative distribution network to reach deep rural pockets.