A2EI Unlocks Further Access to Energy Through the OpenPAYGO™ Token

We’re excited to announce our collaboration with German research and development institute Access to Energy Institute (A2EI), who recently adopted the OpenPAYGO™ Token, Solaris Offgrid’s renowned open-source communication protocol, to make their AAM-Series devices Paygo and boost their mission of unlocking innovative solar products for unbanked communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Millions of polluting fuel generators around the world are still for the most part the only back-up electricity infrastructure for the insufficient grid. As an alternative, solar generators are technically feasible, and could have a great impact in the market. However, no affordable suitable solar products are yet available at a larger scale.

Applying an open-source philosophy to hardware, A2EI aims to tackle this lack of products. They have developed solar generators with the potential to substitute most fuel generators, while remaining affordable to customers. The intellectual property of the solar generator is shared freely and the product comes to market “at cost”, as A2EI has taken on the R&D costs on behalf of the sector and does not take a commercial margin, which allows them to provide an affordable product.

“We’re proud to see how the OpenPAYGO Token is being widely adopted and recognised as a Paygo token standard, allowing innovative players in the industry, such as A2EI, to save resources while reaching households in remote areas with reliable Paygo-compatible products. A2EI’s mission aligns perfectly with that of Solaris Offgrid which makes it smoother for us to support them in reaching more households with robust offgrid solar products and accelerating access to clean energy in emerging markets”, Thibault Lesueur, Co-founder and CCO at Solaris Offgrid.

Small businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa using the AAM-Series can benefit from a reliable uninterrupted power supply, while keeping their workers safe from hazardous fumes, helping to mitigate climate change. Supported by Solaris Offgrid’s renowned open-source token system, the OpenPAYGO Token, the AAM-Series is Paygo-enabled, allowing last-mile distributors to reach remote communities and offer the much-needed devices on a Paygo basis. Moreover, A2EI is taking a step further and currently testing out the PaygOps SaaS platform, which is expected to bring further flexibility into their operations to streamline the access to their high-efficiency Paygo devices.

“Pay-As-You-go is a proven concept to reduce the initial burden for solar system customers to make it competitive with traditional generators and with the OpenPAYGO Token we have integrated the most open and wide-spread technology. Moreover, the combination of a flexible software as PaygOps supporting A2EI’s open-source hardware approach can be a game changer on our mission to replace millions of traditional fossil generators with clean and reliable solar generators”, Thomas Gottschalk, Co-CEO at A2EI.

The robust, efficient and affordable solar generators combine high-efficiency photovoltaic solar modules, long life battery storage, LCD user interface, and the functions of AC inverter, MPPT solar charger, switch over and AC battery charger, while supporting pay-as-you-go functionalities. For more details on A2EI devices, visit their website.

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About Solaris Offgrid

Solaris Offgrid supports distributors and manufacturers across all industries in over 35 countries through Product Development Services and flexible IT solutions. Solaris Offgrid’s flagship PaygOps platform is an interoperable B2B SaaS which connects energy and utility appliances (solar devices, water-pumps, cookstoves, smart metres, e-bikes) and payment methods (Pay-as-you-go and Mobile Money) within a suite of enterprise applications or API services, to allow distributors to smoothly manage their operations and tackle their challenges at the last mile, thus enabling them to provide affordable essential products and services to millions of people at the Bottom-of-the-Pyramid.

About A2EI

The Access to Energy Institute (A2EI) is the first not-for-profit and collaborative research and development institute in the solar off-grid industry. It provides broad, reliable open-source data, as well as on-the-ground research and analysis of solar solutions, and software platforms to administer these. Additionally, A2EI develops and procures solar system and appliance prototypes and initiates pilot projects – aiming to provide widely scalable sustainable energy research and solutions as a common good. A2EI‘s focus is on productive use appliances for small businesses and smallholder farmers which will allow users to earn a stable income, generate jobs and create robust local economic networks. Simultaneously, we concentrate on solar solutions with a high potential to mitigate climate change, create a substantial added benefit for the environment, and improve peoples’ health.