Nigeria, like many West African countries, has experienced record-breaking temperatures in recent months. These intense heatwaves threaten people’s health, reduce food production, and increase energy costs as people try to stay cool.

Affordable Solar Cooling to Replace Diesel Generators

Inconsistent power supply in the country means households and businesses rely on expensive, polluting diesel generators for electricity – a system not everyone can afford.

The solar refrigerators sold by companies like Koolboks, offer an affordable and reliable cooling solution.

CLASP Increases Access to Life-Changing Appliances

Lack of reliable access to electricity is a reality for half of the world’s population, 3.5 billion people worldwide. This energy poverty has detrimental effects on health, productivity, and livelihoods.

For close to a decade, CLASP has been working to improve access to efficient appliances that work in off-grid or weak-grid areas. These productive-use appliances (PUAs), such as solar-powered refrigerators, solar water pumps, and solar milling machines are technologies that have a direct, transformative impact on local communities, small businesses, and people’s livelihoods.  As these appliances are often powered by renewable energy, they have far lower running costs for consumers, and they reduce harm to the environment and the climate.

Innovative financing for Local Distributors

Through its regional presence in four continents, CLASP has researched and worked on different mechanisms to increase access to life-changing, off-grid appliances. Since 2016, CLASP has been driving technology innovation and catalyzing appliance market growth through innovative financing. CLASP works to put efficient, affordable, high-quality appliances and equipment within reach of low-income families and communities through financing projects like the Energy Access Institutions Facility and various results-based financing initiatives like the Higher-Tier Cooking Component and Global LEAP Awards.

CLASP also initiated the Productive Use Financing Facility, a $6.5 million innovative financing program aimed at catalyzing the uptake of productive use appliances across East, West, and Central Africa. This innovative facility delivers support to companies through capacity-building grants, subsidies, and business support.

The Facility strengthens the role of appliance suppliers and distributors by providing capacity-building grants to companies like Koolboks. In addition to business support, CLASP improves appliance performance testing to verify appliance quality, ensuring Koolboks consumers receive reliable information about the efficiency and quality of the products on sale.

“Thanks to the capacity-building funds, we were able to set up the local assembly plant. Now, customers are able to have access to some amount of discounts on their product, which made it more affordable for them.” Lolade Esther Alonge, Project Manager, Koolboks

Watch the video to hear more from Koolboks and their customers on the impact of access to affordable cooling.

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About The Productive Use Financing Facility

CLASP’s Productive Use Financing Facility, is supported by The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP). It has provided financing to 24 companies in six countries, to enable the distribution of over 13,000 productive-use appliances, directly impacting more than 58,000 households.