When there’s no electricity to power the appliances essential to wellbeing and prosperity, what’s a community to do? CLASP interviewed two solar appliance companies to discuss what it will take to expand their impact.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the answer is often turning to kerosene and diesel to run everything from lights to farm equipment. But fossil fuels are expensive and polluting. Reliance on these energy sources leads to a host of negative impacts across the region, from financial stress to lower crop yields.
David Wanjau, a Kenyan entrepreneur and rabbit farmer who trained as a scientist, spent six years watching this issue play out across sub-Saharan Africa while working at a nonprofit focused on food security. The experience changed his life.
“I noticed that every farmer we were supporting did not have access to electricity,” he said. “So I stopped what I was doing to focus on energy access and become an agent of change in these communities.”
Today, Wanjau leads Nairobi-based distributor Deevabits Green Energy, a small business that’s one of more than 200 companies working to expand solar energy access to the hundreds of millions of people in Africa who lack access to the electric grid.
Deevabits began by selling solar lights, but customers soon began asking for more. “They wanted solutions that could be used for their businesses: for cooling drinks, or for meat preservation,” Wanjau said. So his team decided to start stocking solar-powered refrigerators.
“Our company now wants to be on the forefront of providing energy efficient, standalone productive-use [i.e., income-generating] appliances,” he explained. “We just need to position ourselves to be able to tap into this big market.”
Meeting high demand
Sales of solar appliances more than tripled between 2018 and 2023 as new manufacturers and distributors entered the sector, according to Leave No One Behind: Bridging the Energy Access Gap with Innovative Off-Grid Solar Solutions, a 2024 report published by the Efficiency for Access coalition. (CLASP co-manages the coalition with Energy Saving Trust, a UK-based nonprofit.)
The business potential is tremendous. The report’s modeling shows that if everyone who needs solar appliances could purchase them, the market value would reach $58 billion USD.
“It’s a huge market opportunity,” said Peter Wangila, Kenya operations and finance manager at SureChill, a manufacturer selling solar fridges in over ten African countries. The company’s patented battery-less design reduces the need for maintenance over the fridges’ lifespan and eliminates the need for expensive battery replacements.
“We’ve done over 1,000 installations, but we haven’t even scratched the surface. There’s a high demand for cooling,” Wangila said.
Today, sales cover less than 2% of the estimated global demand for solar appliances. It’s a gap that has remained frustratingly difficult to bridge, said CLASP’s Nyamolo Abagi, a coauthor of Leave No One Behind.
“Here in sub-Saharan Africa, 60% of households still do not own a refrigerator, an essential appliance for preserving food that is almost ubiquitous in homes across the Global North. This is a classic example of energy poverty,” she said. “The solar appliance sector has to grow rapidly in both scale and ambition in order to serve this enormous need.”
Solar appliances are a game-changer for small businesses
Most solar fridge customers live in rural areas with no grid access. Deevabits’ customers are typically small shopkeepers selling cold beverages—water, juice, milk, yogurt, and soda—to parched customers. “In very hot areas, cold drinks are a luxury,” said Wanjau. “That’s why for shops, these fridges are gamechangers.”
The company also serves clients in the medical and food retail sectors. Clinics use solar-powered fridges to keep vaccines and medicines cold, explained Wanjau, while fish traders see fridges as a safer way to preserve their wares than the traditional drying or deep frying.
Meanwhile, butchers tend to use the freezer setting on the Deevabits model to reduce waste. Before acquiring these appliances, “they would hang their meat, and it would go bad after two or three days,” Wanjau said. “Now people can stock larger volumes and sell it for a whole week.”
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