by Sara Eisemann

When EarthSpark launched the first grid electricity in Les Anglais, Haiti, Jean-Jean Charles was afraid he wouldn’t be able to afford the $30 connection fee. For years, he had used kerosene lamps to light the blue house where he lives with his three children, an 8-year-old girl and two boys ages 5 and 13. Sometimes, he would charge a 12-volt battery at his church’s diesel generators and bring it home so that he could charge his mobile phone and power a small radio with a system of bare wires. He knew he needed a change, but his small income from growing peas and breadfruit and helping his father run a small school wasn't enough.

Even if he hadn’t been able to pay up-front, on-bill financing would have allowed him to pay the connection fee over time. But Jean-Jean was determined to be among the full-fledged initial customers. “I will get the money before the deadline,” he told the EKo Pwòp organizer. “And you’ll see, I’ll be your best customer.”

EKo Pwòp — short for Elektrisite Kominote Pwòp, which means “clean community electricity” — is EarthSpark’s micro-utility, currently serving 54 customers in Les Anglais and preparing to expand to a town-sized solar-powered microgrid this summer. The EKo Pwòp model is based around a pre-pay system in which customers pay for electricity before they use it. People are already well accustomed to pre-payment since most mobile phones in Haiti work on a pre-pay basis. EKo Pwòp's upfront billing structure allows customers to pay for electricity in small increments, spending only as much as they can afford and eliminating the fear of a big bill at the end of the month. People in Les Anglais typically buy kerosene every few days for a few days' worth of evening lighting fuel. With the EKo Pwòp connection, customers have access to clean electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week while paying far less than they would for kerosene or candles.

Jean-Jean did find the money, and he has put away his smoky lamps and dangerous wires. At first, he would check in with his local EKo Pwòp vendor almost every day to make sure he wasn’t using more electricity than he had on his account, but now that he has a better understanding of his electricity consumption, he has started to space his visits to the store. Now his children study by the light of the efficient lightbulb provided with the EKo Pwòp installation, and he powers his radio with electricity that’s safe for his home and his family. He reads alongside his children, too. Already fluent in Haitian Creole and conversant in French, he is working on learning a third language: English. 

At his own rhythm, through the easy months and the hard, he is adamant that will be a faithful EKo Pwòp customer for years to come — and hopefully the clean, safe electricity now powering his home will help bring him more easy months than hard.

by Rachel McManus

Building retail networks and small-scale infrastructure for clean energy services in Haiti is not enough to ensure the long-term sustainability of energy access. Sustained success will depend on the next generation of Haitian engineers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers, so EarthSpark was honored to present clean technology career paths as part of IEEE Haiti's inaugural conference in April.

The Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology, launched its Haiti branch with an inaugural conference in partnership with the Faculty of Sciences at the State University of Haiti. The conference was an excellent opportunity for EarthSpark to meet the best and brightest in Haiti’s higher education system, scout for future technicians and staff members, and build collaborations with Haitian academia.

Created by three enterprising students from the City College of New York (CCNY), one of IEEE Haiti’s main goals is to advance Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in order to build the leadership necessary to contribute to Haiti’s development. Each day was chock-full of interesting presentations by professors and stakeholders discussing topics ranging from renewable energy to hydrology to mathematics.

EarthSpark had dual presentations by Microgrid Project Manager and SparkMeter co-founder Arthur Jacquiau-Chamski (in the photo above) and Country Director Rachel McManus. Arthur presented on the topic of sustainable solar microgrids, presenting the business case for the use of renewable energy in microgrid development in Haiti. Rachel spoke on the use of distribution networks for small-scale solar technology as a medium-term solution to energy poverty.

EarthSpark is excited to see this advancement of the sciences in Haiti and proud to help advance technology and STEM education. We are looking forward to working with IEEE Haiti and the Faculty of Sciences at the State University of Haiti in the near future. 

You can follow IEEE Haiti’s work on their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter: @IEEEHaiti.

by Sara Eisemann

Cap-Haïtien — The Enèji Pwòp team on April 12 took their training program on the road and headed to Cap-Haïtien to train 23 new Retailers. National Sales and Marketing Manager Jacquelin Meremable introduced the group to Enèji Pwòp through an interactive presentation, from demonstrating the proper use of our Recho Gaz Blan (at right) to giving everyone the opportunity to practice with new marketing and sales materials.

Jacquelin said that the Site Seller is the best new tool “because it has simple pictures that anyone will understand … and because prospective customers have a chance to participate in the sales presentation.” It gave our eager Retailers a chance to participate in the presentation as well —  everyone practiced in pairs, and two Retailers were brave enough to demonstrate in front of the group.

The team was also thrilled to officially welcome Enise Antoine to the team as the new Agent for the North department. Enise has been involved with Enèji Pwòp since 2011, when she bought her first Lanp Enèji Pwòp from a friend who suggested she become a Retailer.

Enise manages the Enèji Pwòp depot outside of Cap-Haïtien and oversees her own Retailer network while actively recruiting new Retailers. After the training, she and her husband helped Jacquelin install one of our solar home systems at the depot. The lights will be sure to attract attention, encouraging even more people to buy Enèji Pwòp products, light their homes, and improve their lives. It is our newly trained Retailers, like Norvil Saintélus Yvenique, who will truly help us make that difference. As Yvenique said:

Enèji Pwòp believes that customer service extends far beyond the simple process of exchanging money for products and includes everything from pre-sales service and marketing to innovative payment plans and strong technical support. Because our training process integrates all of these elements, our clean energy entrepreneurs become not just Enèji Pwòp Retailers, but community leaders who improve the lives of those around them and take pride in their work. As Retailer Lise Joseph Maître said, “My experience with Enèji Pwòp has helped many clients discover us [and our products] and helped me meet more people.”

Technician Berger Dunel emphasized another cornerstone of Enèji Pwòp customer service with a presentation about correct product usage and the technical support system we offer. Retailers were excited to learn about new products, like the larger Recho Gaz Blan (kerosene stove) with two burners, and ask questions that will help them better explain all of our products to their customers. Retailer Juline Joint said, “When I go back to my house, I can give my customers more information about the products. With this, I will become a better retailer in my neighborhood.”

All the members of our inaugural training class were excited at the end of the day to receive their official Enèji Pwòp Retailer certification and use their new skills and tools to improve their businesses. Retailer Antoine Gilbert Maître said, “Now that we have more knowledge about Enèji Pwòp products, we can do a better job selling them.” Juline added, “After this training, I feel like a better Enèji Pwòp Retailer.”

Stay tuned for updates on our upcoming trainings in Port-au-Prince, Cap Haitian, and Jacmel. In the meantime, check out some of the sales and marketing materials from 17 Triggers we used in this training by clicking on the following links:
Site Seller  •  "Say This" Cards  •  Product Brochure

We started by putting together the Retailer Toolkit, which includes an official Retailer Guide, marketing materials, and a range of one-on-one sales tools. Our favorite sales tool is the new Site Seller, which illustrates the health and financial benefits of buying Enèji Pwòp products instead of traditional kerosene lamps or charcoal stoves.

The Site Seller is complemented by “Say This” cards, which provide retailers with suggested responses to common objections — for example, “I already have a stove that works!” or “How can just one person help the environment?" 

These tools will help our retailers improve their sales by helping them show customers how much of a difference Enèji Pwòp products can make in their lives.

We have also prepared a full-day training presentation, which will introduce the Retailer Toolkit and give the retailers hands-on experience with the new materials. Retailers will have the opportunity to get to know the Enèji Pwòp community in their region, giving them access to a support network of others experiencing the same struggles and successes with their sales!

Berger, our technician, helped us integrate a discussion of proper product usage and common technical problems into the presentation as well. This includes everything from the proper way to start our Recho Gaz Blan (pressurized kerosene stove) to reminding customers that while our Lanp Enèji Pwòp is waterproof, our TiPowa is not!

by Allison Archambault

This is an excerpt from a Microgrid News article. Read the full article here. 

"The point of what we're doing is to prove out a viable business model that can be scaled and replicated throughout Haiti and the rest of world," says Allison Archambault, President of EarthSpark. That model is: deliver affordable, reliable energy services to homes and businesses in small towns with town-sized, solarized smart grids. We are optimizing for lowest levelized cost of electricity - when we do that, the generation is heavily renewable. Obviously these are site specific, but in many of the towns we envision for next steps, solar is a fantastic resource."

EarthSpark has been running the grid project in Les Anglais since November 2012. The organization launched Haiti's first prepaid microgrid with just fourteen customers and has now expanded it to fifty-four - all of whom are now using second generation smart meters which are now being further developed by SparkMeter, a technology company that EarthSpark recently spun off to specifically focus on smart meter hardware and software.

"We were looking for pre-paid meters with a low price point and a high degree of functionality," Archambault says. "We wanted to do things like change load limiting and remote connect / disconnect. There was nothing on the market that met our needs, so we developed our own." The grant received by EarthSpark will allow them to expand the project to approximately 400 customers, and to solarize the grid. 

"Right now the microgrid in Les Anglais is simply using diesel, which was never the long term plan," Archambault adds. "It was a simple way to get started, as we were collaborating with the local telecom company that was already using diesel for their communications tower." 

"Once the viability of the business model is proven, it should be able to be replicated elsewhere. Looking forward, we would not do a phased approach - we would go in and do a community / load assessment, alongside the government and local leaders, and design a town-sized energy system from the beginning." 

EarthSpark's notable innovation is its effort to pair residential and commercial loads in a viable business model through prepaid smart meters, seeking to provide demand management on a town-size scale in a way that makes the whole grid more efficient. After the Les Anglais project has proven out the business model, Archambault sees the integrated town-scale approach as replicable and attractive to investors.

"Basically, we are taking one hundred years of people's experience managing power systems -- the lessons learned and the technology available now - and building the best possible system in these developing areas," she adds. "There is no incumbent infrastructure where we're building these grids. We're leapfrogging to the next generation, similar to what mobile phone operators did in these kinds of countries." 

This is an excerpt from a Microgrid News article. Read the full article here.