Access to clean, affordable and efficient energy is widely recognised as the precursor to development, as it is fundamental to improving health services via vaccine refrigeration, driving microenterprise development and enabling better communications through lighting, evening literacy and training programs.

In the Pacific, 80 per cent of the population lack access to electricity, and 1 million households are spending approximately $US50 million annually on kerosene for lighting.

This money is effectively ‘burned’ money – and there is an enormous opportunity to redirect these funds into more efficient light and electricity sources.

REEEP has funded a project, the Pacific Kerosene Displacement Strategies Project, which will be implemented by Australian company, Barefoot Power. The project aims to demonstrate the fact that while kerosene lighting in the Pacific is a market worth millions of dollars annually, these funds can (and should) be redirected towards investment in electricity, particularly renewable energy.

A mixture of old and new technologies can be used to design affordable solutions that reduce perceived investment risk.

Funding for this project has been provided by the Federal Government through the Australian Greenhouse Office.

Barefoot Power was established in 2005 by directors Harry Andrews and Stewart Craine with a vision to provide access to modern energy services to at least 1 million people by 2011. The company is currently investing in energy infrastructure in the Pacific and developing strategies for the rapid transformation of the kerosene lighting market towards more efficient electric lighting products.

Pacific Island Countries (PICs) face a unique and challenging situation with respect to increasing the uptake of rural renewable energy systems. The key challenge is the wide geographic dispersal of PICs, and their island provinces, which creates isolated population centres that are difficult to serve. These small markets, with their low population density, result in a high delivery cost of energy.

Energy investments are often large and centralised, with long lifetimes and financing periods (10 - 25 years). Decentralised and small energy technologies have emerged in the past 30 years, increasing the array of technologies available, reducing the scale of investment required, and often reducing payback periods.

In the context of providing energy services, microcredit is an important service so that consumers or micro entrepreneurs can purchase a system or establish a business and then save up to ten years of expenditure that would have otherwise gone towards purchasing kerosene and batteries.

“One important aspect to the REEEP project is developing strategies and technical information that equip local small to medium enterprises in the Pacific to redirect a household’s kerosene expenditure towards renewable energy products,” said Harry Andrews.

“The market in the Pacific is extremely dispersed, and thus it is important to engage households from a broad range of income levels. In other regions of the world with denser populations and more developed photovoltaic markets, such as Kenya, traditional household renewable energy systems, costing more than $US200, have only reached the more affluent members of a community. In the Pacific, a small business cannot rely on a high-value low-turnover sales model because transport and marketing costs to achieve these sales are prohibitive.”

Barefoot Power is investigating recent advances in sustainable energy products, such as white LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), and the use of coconut oil as a biofuel, as potential alternatives. White LEDs are changing the way we look at rural lighting as they enable the total lighting load within a system to be reduced fourfold, thereby reducing electricity generation needs by a similar factor.

When considering small PV lighting systems, more than 50 per cent of product costs are in the PV panel. Traditional PV lighting products use compact fluorescent lamps, which require panels above five watts, but a lighting system that utilises LEDs can be matched with a panel as small as one watt. This huge reduction in panel size increases the affordability of basic photovoltaic lighting products. Small business can, therefore, market to a much higher proportion of the population in their local communities.

“The increasing affordability of entry level lighting products means that more households are able to purchase lighting systems for cash,” said Mr Andrews.

Barefoot Power will also investigate macro and micro financing strategies for the transformation of the kerosene lighting market in the Pacific. To win the war against kerosene, finance will be required at a number of levels ranging from millions of dollars for international manufacturing and distribution businesses to hundreds of dollars for micro-businesses selling products within villages.

This project is a first step in this direction.