Beyond the Grid Fund
for Zambia
180,000+
energy service subscriptions sold
2,500,000+
kg of CO2 mitigated annually
c. 1 million
total beneficiaries
Winner of the 2019 Ashden Award for Innovative Finance & the 2019 UN Global Climate Action Award
Zambia is home to a highly dispersed population, with more than 60% of people living under the poverty line, and some 70% of whom have no access to modern energy. Neither the national utility nor energy service providers had been able to effectively deliver energy to rural and peri-urban areas, hindered largely by a lack of capacity and investment.
Edison provides monitoring, portfolio management and risk analysis services to the Beyond the Grid Fund for Zambia (BGFZ).
Launched in 2016 by the Swedish Embassy in Lusaka and implemented by REEEP with the aim to expand access to clean off-grid energy in rural and peri-urban Zambia, today BGFZ connects approximately one million Zambians (c.200,000 households) to solar home systems and mini-grids. The programme awarded results-based contracts to four companies deemed ready for rapid scale-up. BGFZ works closely with partners in its efforts to build a thriving market for off-grid energy services.
The BGFZ approach rests on three pillars: an innovative financing mechanism built on risk-sharing and transparent criteria, close collaboration with the renewable energy industry, government and investors through the Off-Grid Energy Task Force and unique market intelligence generation gained through Edison.
Edison is connected to the companies’ internal systems and provides live information on energy service subscriptions sold, payments, upgrades and warranty events, among other data points, which allows for real time verification. The data has great potential to de-risk future investments in Zambia’s off-grid energy markets and to help guide policymaking.