Managing, monitoring, evidencing solar system productivity - REMOT

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£1,382,015

March 1, 2023

July 31, 2024

Solar energy for productive uses like grinding corn or refrigerating produce in small businesses or homes can significantly improve agricultural productivity and socio-economic living standards for poor African off-grid communities. The required power output compared to typical home systems is generally greater and quite expensive, so most customers prefer credit-based payment models and require reliable system performance. Solar distribution companies have tapped into this fast-growing market but market penetration is hindered by manual solar system performance monitoring across wide geographies, and rudimentary systems for managing payments. Digital systems for automatic payment management, real-time performance monitoring, and pre-emptive troubleshooting, can ensure quick and effective system maintenance and system reliability and provide the data evidence base for solar distributors and development finance institutions to really accelerate the uptake of productive use solar systems.

Our Remote Energy Management and Monitoring Technology (REMOT) at TRL7 is currently deployed in \>1500 solar PV installations across 8 SSAf countries with field trials underway of our 3rd generation hardware in \>1,100 of these. The hardware is the only unit on the market which is entirely fabricated in Africa in our new factory in Uganda. Matching our hardware innovation, our vision under this IUK competition is to develop:

1. New innovative software capability for primary (solar distribution companies) and secondary (international development finance institutions and insurance company) clients
2. Transformational software-as-a service subscription model to make REMOT even more affordable and accessible
3. Trial the software with existing and new clients to provide the evidence base for a Series A investment raise of $1 million

Importantly, through the total project we will impact an estimated 74,769 persons and enable 452,600 kWh solar energy generated per year.

Our short term vision after this project is to reach a client base of 200 B2B clients across 15 African countries and \>1,000,000 beneficiaries in health clinics, schools, small businesses and households by 2025\.