OneLamp Uganda
Organization Details
OneLamp is Africa's last-mile on-demand delivery service for clean energy. It's powered 100% by USSD technology enabling millions of off-grid African households to order solar lights using their cell phones, pay with mobile money and enjoy door to door delivery using an existing transport infrastructure.
OneLamp focuses on superior last mile delivery of solar light systems and deployment of short messaging service (SMS) and USSD technology for aggregating energy demand, payments, quality customer service and impact assessment at the bottom of the pyramid.
We're are an empowering people.Network award winning organization. The empowering people. Network is an initiative of Siemens Stiftung that brings innovators and social entrepreneurs together and fosters the combination of technical and entrepreneurial concepts.
Impact Story
There are over 400 million cell phone users in Africa without light. The World Bank light Africa report estimates that up to 11% of household income is spent on charging phones. These households face recurring expenses on energy costs ranging between 50 - 65% of their monthly expenditures. Currently, dozens of solar companies specialize in the manufacture of solar lights, but rely on existing limited distribution networks to reach potential off grid customers on the African market. A majority of the population in developing African economies live in rural areas often accessible only by poor quality road infrastructure.
The delivery and the usage of solar lights in off grid homes translates to a reduction of greenhouse gases that cause climate change and its impact on the off grid livelihood of communities. According to UNEP a full transition to energy efficient off-grid lighting by Uganda would result in 823.3 million USD annual savings, 1.7 million tons of CO2 emissions reduction annually, 6.5 million households with better quality light and a reduction or elimination of fuel-related health issues, fire hazards and toxic fumes. Over the next 12 months, OneLamp intends to deliver over 10,000 solar lights to off-grid rural households in Uganda directly impacting over 50,000 people. We hope to save low income households approximately $1m that could have gone to kerosene expenditures.
