Bennu-Solar exists to make bringing solar energy
to rural poor a piece of cake.

How exactly? ..with:

- free resources database
(http://www.bennu-solar.com/index.php/resources)

- free consulting
(http://tinyurl.com/free-consulting)

- group purchasing
(http://tinyurl.com/group-purchasing)

Problem

There are hundreds of businesses and organizations in developing countries which are bringing solar to low-income villagers. That is great! except.. Except that when they contact a factory to buy the solar products they are viewed as small clients, and as we all know, small clients pay higher price. So here we are in this twisted world where people in Germany can buy solar panels of higher quality at a lower cost. But for clients in Africa which need solar badly, the price is higher and the quality lower. Why? Because they don't come with big purchasing power? Well.. Lets see about that..

Solution

Mmm.. one small business in Kenya indeed can't place big orders and become a VIP client of a factory to enjoy top quality products at a low price. But! how about that business in Kenya + one in Zimbabwe and Cambodia and Tanzania, and in other developing countries combined? Well, yes. Together they represent a decent size buyer. So that is what we do, we coordinate solar buyers in developing countries into a group, and leverage our collective purchasing power to get a better deal from the solar products factories. At the end of the day, it is the villagers which those businesses and organizations serve that benefit from the cost reduction and the higher quality.

Example

We recently completed a group purchase with businesses from Cambodia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. They told us that our group purchasing service reduced their costs by 30%, and they were also more confident in the products since we include a third party quality inspection at the factory. On top of that, they saved time because we handled the negotiation, purchasing and logistics process. So how did we do it? simple, these 3 companies were going to contact the factory on their own, not knowing about each other. But, since they learned about our service, they decided to let us handle the purchase, and we were able to bundle them together and when we approach the factory we were representing 3 buyers, making the order bigger and receiving the bulk pricing from the factory. (http://tinyurl.com/group-purchasing) We later got feedback from the business in Zimbabwe, he said he installed the solar system for a family living in a rural area. For the first time in their life they had electricity to power a fridge and TV! Without the the cost reduction they wouldn't have been able to afford it. (this kind of feedback is what keeps me going!!!)

Marketplace

There are a couple of ways to buy solar products for use in rural areas in developing countries: - through trading companies - directly from the factory The benefits for buying through a trading company is that they buy big, so they get lower prices from the factory, but they too mark up the price, and they might have certain agreements with specific suppliers, or maybe keep goods in stock, so the buyer doesn't really have access to the best product on the market at the best price. The benefits of contacting the factory directly is that buyers can approach any factory, but the problem is that they are only representing their own purchasing power, so they don't receive the prices and quality which big buyers get. Our coordinated group purchasing offers just the benefits.