This is an idea that I've been thinking about for a while now. One of the issues I couldn't figure out how to overcome was the need for more electricity as people get a taste of how electricity can change their lives. Since installation of the solar station is subsidized and the villagers are essentially only paying for electricity they use, unless what is being paid is more than the maintenance cost of the solar station there is no more money to expand the capacity unless you get grants from World Bank or other entities.
How do you make this a completely self sustaining model where expansion is built in to the model without charging the users more money than they can afford? Can you charge the power users more money than the basic user? e.g. if basic user is paying $10 to use X kilowatts and makes $15 in income from that electricity, then the power user who uses 10X kilowatts can be charged $140 under the presumption that the power user uses that extra electricity to generate an income > $150 for themselves. The profits can then be put back into expanding the solar station capacity.
Hi, I'm also from SEL. In addition to some of our work (which is generally about shared solar), some interesting companies that are thinking about (and providing their own solutions to) the financing question are http://www.selco-india.com/ and http://simpanetworks.com/ Not endorsing their work necessarily, but worth a look at, for someone interested in this stuff.
How do you make this a completely self sustaining model where expansion is built in to the model without charging the users more money than they can afford? Can you charge the power users more money than the basic user? e.g. if basic user is paying $10 to use X kilowatts and makes $15 in income from that electricity, then the power user who uses 10X kilowatts can be charged $140 under the presumption that the power user uses that extra electricity to generate an income > $150 for themselves. The profits can then be put back into expanding the solar station capacity.