MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Greenlight Planet Secures $90m in Debt, Equity for Pay-as-you-go Solar in Africa, South Asia

Greenlight Planet, a for-profit social business with offices in Kenya, India and the US, recently secured USD 90 million in debt and equity to expand its sales of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar products. The investors are ARCH Emerging Markets Partners via its Africa Renewable Power Fund, CDC Group, FMO, Global Partnerships, Norfund, responsAbility, SIMA and Symbiotics. USD 21 million of the total remains “to be drawn down as the company delivers additional solar-powered home energy systems…”.

The CEO of Greenlight Planet, T Patrick Walsh, explained, “We are expanding access to consumer financing, making basic solar power available to all people, at a cost as low as USD 0.15 per day.”

Under its Sun King brand, Greenlight Planet sells lighting, phone chargers, radios, fans and other products in 62 countries via a network of 100 distributors. These distributors offer payment plans spanning approximately seven months, with payments collected via mobile money.

Greenlight Planet, founded in 2006, reports 26.9 million product users in 5.3 million off-grid homes who have “saved over USD 3.4 billion on fossil-fuel based energy costs, reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by more than 14 million metric tons.”

By Nathan Kiplagat, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

PV magazine news release
https://www.pv-magazine.com/press-releases/greenlight-planet-solar-pay-as-you-go-market-leader-secures-90-million-investment/

Greenlight Planet homepage
https://www.greenlightplanet.com/

Do you know that MicroCapital publishes the MicroCapital Monitor newspaper each month? Find out more at https://www.microcapital.org/products-page/.