Project Closure Report
Punam Energy Private Limited (ONergy)
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- Business Model Supply Chain Mechanism
- Revenue Model
- Scalability Potential
- Project Progress
Punam Energy Private Limited (ONergy)Project Brief ONergy has proposed to set up One Shakti Kendra (renewable energy centers) to deploy renewable energy products to the bottom of pyramid communities in the rural Odisha covering 20 villages, creating 100 rural enterprises with in the first year of operation. The project will develop a strong network of entrepreneurs who will be trained and empowered to assemble, sell and service the RET devices which will be sold through Shakti Kendra. awareness about RET as well as serve as point of sale of renewable energy devices, training of local people to manage sales and after sales maintenance. The RET products promoted by the Shakti Kendra will be SPV based LED lighting systems, solar lantern, solar home electrification system and improved cook stoves. Business Model Supply Chain Mechanism: Suppliers identified are SELCO, Barefoot Power for solar products and TIDE for improved cook stoves. Operation and Maintenance The Shakti Kendra will establish distribution infrastructure network involving local communities and build trust to manage supply chain. It will train rural entrepreneurs and build sales force and after-sales support network. Revenue Model Revenue will be based on sales of products, subscriptions for charging stations of solar lanterns and after-sales service support. Sustainability The target communities are villagers with average monthly combined expenditure of up to Rs 300 on kerosene, wood biomass and mobile charging. The demand for renewable energy products can be expected if they are provided at affordable cost and its successful working is demonstrated in the project area. Scalability Potential ONergy aims to impact 1 million lives or about 200,000 households in the next five years. To increase the sales and revenues, they plan to scale up by increasing the number of renewable energy centres and expand into other regions. Structured training programs will be put in place for all micro-entrepreneurs which will ensure that all ONergy representatives have the required knowledge and expertise to carry out after sales service. Project Progress Figure ONergy conducts a two-day training on SPV products for the Entrepreneurs in Bolangir A visit was made to the captioned project location on December 14-15, 2012. ONergy received MNRE’s support for setting up “One Energy Centre” in Bolangir district of Odisha state for selling clean energy products to people in 20 villages. Bolangir is among the least developed districts of the state. At the time of the visit ONergy team conducted a two-day Entrepreneur Training program for local entrepreneurs, self-help groups and NGO to familiarize them with the products range it is selling and to act as a servicing agents post sale. On June 5, ONergy inaugurated the Renewable Energy Center (Shakti Kendra) in Bolangir which is first-of-its-kind in Odisha. During the inauguration ONergy briefed the participant and invited dignitaries - Director of District Rural Development Authority, Chairman and GM of Utkal Grameen Bank, Dy Director OREDA, Zonal Manager Adhikar Microfinance, Manager XIMB Incubator - and appraised them about the program activities under MNRE-UNDP program. “ONergy’s Energy Center or One Shakti Kendra” in Bolangir became fully functional from August 1, 2012 with two person staff. This office is also registered in Odisha for conducting sales and has received sales-tax number. The ONergy team subsequently took up the steps of identifying project partners – NGO, Self Help Groups and also identified the volunteers. It conducted awareness/demonstration activities at village level August onwards covering 33 villages. The villages were selected based on recommendations of NGOs and SHP and where there are regular electricity outages. ONergy also carried out a market survey in four blocks in August. 
Figure Field demonstration of solar PV based lighting products at Patnagarh Field demonstration of renewable energy technologies/products for awareness creation were carried out in seven blocks of Bolangir district, namely Bolangir, Agalpur,Loisinga, Deogan, Patnagarh, Puintala, Titlagargh: August 21, 2012 onwards. In December 2012, ONergy participated in Sensitization Workshop on Solar PV organized by NABARD regional office in Bhubaneswar (state capital) where participants were senior officials of Regional Rural Banks and Public Sector banks. ONergy has signed memorandum of understanding with 11 local partners (NGO and Self-help groups) to promote and sell Clean Energy products (Solar photovoltaic based lighting systems, improved cook stoves) in villages of Bolangir district. 
Figure In Bidighat village, Odisha, the use of kerosene for lighting in this rural home stopped completely after purchase of this SPV lamp Along with Alok Piri and Shreykant Naik of ONergy, a visit was made to four villages where ONergy has sold its lighting products. These villages are Bidighat, Chantimunda, Bargaon and Janakpur in Bolangir block. Interaction with individual in these villages who have bought the systems provided interesting revelations. With few exceptions, all the people who bought these products have access to grid electricity however they continue to use kerosene lanterns due to erratic nature of electricity. After purchasing solar lighting systems they have done away with kerosene usage which is resulting in monthly savings of about Rs 150, as the monthly requirement of 6 liters of kerosene was met in the following way - 2 liter from government’s fair price shop @ Rs 17/liter and remaining 4 liter from open market @ Rs 30/liter. The other interesting facts that came out during the interaction is that having realised that there is no operating expenditure associated with solar lights, some people have started using it more during evening hours to cut down on grid electricity usage, as all have metered connection and receive bi-monthly electricity bills of about .Rs 200. Interaction with the end users also brought out the need for ONergy to hold servicing camp on a quarterly basis, for which they agreed to develop a plan and submit to MNRE-UNDP for information. 
A meeting was also held with the General Manager of Utkal Gramin Bank which has a largest reach at village levels in Orissa (far more than any other bank). Utkal Grameen bank provides agriculture-loan which is typically of about Rs 50,000 with repayment tenure of 12-months. The purpose of the meeting was to apprise the General Manager about the UNDP-MNRE’s ‘Access to Clean Energy’ program and activities of ONergy. Given the bank’s reach at the village level, ONergy feels its involvement is crucial to increase the sales as many more people from village will come forward if bank provides loan on the products on the subsidized cost. As ONergy has spent more efforts on awareness creation and training NGO, members of Self Help groups and local entrepreneurs about the merits of solar photo voltaic systems and servicing it, therefore it is behind schedule in meeting the requirements of 3rd milestone of MNRE’s sanction letter Also, there has been no sale at all of improved cook stoves and its focus has been promoting only SPV based products. ONergy agreed to prepare a work plan on the steps it will take to achieve 40% sales target and also to achieve sales target 60% of sales across all categories of products listed in the sanction letter to avail balance amount of grant funds.
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