Energy rental at mobile money agents in rural Africa

Addressing the income and energy gaps for MMAs and their customers

Many MMAs make good incomes, particularly in urban areas with high footfall, but many also need to find additional ways of generating income — especially in rural areas, or where they have few other business lines they can offer alongside mobile money.

At the same time, many of the MMAs' customers lack access to clean and affordable energy and have not yet benefited from solar home systems they can afford. This leaves them with the alternatives of living in the dark, using expensive and dangerous fossil fuels such as kerosene, or buying disposable batteries that often end up discarded once used.

Connecting batteries and payments to enable daily rentals from local MMAs

4R Digital and its partners are addressing these challenges by enabling MMAs to add a new line of business that complements their mobile money services. By digitally connecting and controlling batteries, it is possible to create a "battery rental" service for MMAs to offer their customers — who already visit frequently and can use their existing mobile money accounts to pay for batteries as they use them, avoiding any up-front capital cost.

Supported by Frontier Technologies Livestreaming, 4R Digital is developing an IoT-enabled, digitally-financed clean energy charging station for micro-retailers, built on three core technologies:

• Smart household batteries with embedded digital controls
• IoT monitoring and charging station systems
• Existing digital finance and e-payment infrastructure

Generating MMA incomes and ensuring no-one is left behind

There is a very considerable market for energy services that have not yet been met by existing solutions. By combining a successful new business offering for MMAs with a valued energy service for their customers, it will be possible to reach tens of thousands of MMAs and their customers with a clean, affordable, income-generating new service.