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CSR Pilot Project - Installation of Solar Street Lighting & Power Packs in Rebuilt Village in Nellore-Port Krishnapatnam Area
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CSR Project - Installing Solar Power Packs in Appapur Village in Nallamala Forest
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Solar Street Lighting Project with the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation
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Installation of Solar LED Street Lighting Systems for ACC cements at Bellary
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VLE's RTO PAYG Solar

One of the most significant challenges faced by off-grid lighting companies in the developing world is getting their solar lighting products into the homes of the clients in a manner that they can both afford. A rapidly evolving method is to make the sale by credit, i.e. by hire purchase, but with a modern twist whereby the Mobile phone network plays a key role. This new system has come to be known as “Pay As You Go (PAYG)”, though a more accurate title would probably be “Rent To Own (RTO)”, since the client will eventually own the system. 

The PAYG platform capitalizes on trends in mobile phone and mobile banking infrastructure to remove the upfront price barrier to solar and other modern sources of energy. Accepting energy pre-payments through mobile money avoids the servicing costs of traditional loans, simplifies payment tracking for partners, and streamlines the payment process for end-customers. Data transfer over the cellular voice channel leverages the customer’s own phone to convey payment information to their PAYG-enabled solar device via the cellular network. This low-cost implementation of PAYG has finally made energy affordable to the majority of the huge off-grid market at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP).

To efficiently manage such PAYG systems, a special Control mechanism is required, and the PAYG system has to encourage and enable the client, in a simple but effective way, to make timely energy payment, i.e. the payment controller will turn off the power automatically if the installment payment is not made.           After all the installments are paid, the system will be unlocked and the user can now use the solar home system for free and at any time.

VLE is in the process of patenting an innovative RTO technique that will be incorporated in the Freedom Lantern (FLN), and this will assist with the the sale of the product through various global organizations like Solar Aid / Sunny money, SKS microfinance and S3IDF by way of innovative financing schemes.

The novelty of the RTO design includes the use of sophisticated encryption to protect the users account and hardwarewise it is very economic, costing only a few dollars.  This technology can also be used to track the complete payment profiles of every FLN sold, monitor product usage, battery health, charging-discharging profiles, assess payment trends and track sales by region.