Episode 03: The OpenPAYGO Token by Solaris Offgrid

The D-REC Initiative from Positive Capital Partners and South Pole

Today, I'm talking with Paul Needham and Ricky Buch from Positive Capital Partners. EnAccess is one of the funders of a project they are working on, together with South Pole, called the D-REC Initiative. The D-REC, or Distributed Renewable Energy Certificate is being created to solve a problem that will have a direct benefit for Energy Access project developers and for corporates who want the biggest return on their investment in renewable energy in terms of climate impact. In a place like California, a homeowner who installs solar panels on their house can actually sell the renewable energy that those panels create, creating a way to make money. There is no equivalent to this for DRE developers working in off grid locations, which basically means the energy access industry hasn’t yet been able to tap into the already-existing demand for renewable energy attributes. And on the other side, corporates haven’t had the chance to make the kind of climate impact that they could be making, if they were to have a certifiable way of investing into distributed renewable energy.  This is where we need the D-REC:  an open source, internationally accepted market instrument which can validate, and put a real monetary value on the environmental benefit provided by DRE systems. In this conversation, Paul and Ricky talk about how they got this Initiative off the ground and why Open Source is so important for its' success. Links: enaccess.org/drecs [https://enaccess.org/drecs/] d-recs.energy [https://www.d-recs.energy/] D-RECs on GitHub [https://github.com/EnAccess/D-RECs] Energy Web Foundation Origin [https://github.com/energywebfoundation/origin] EnAccess blog post [https://medium.com/the-enaccess-foundation/drec-new-global-standard-db9459449be4?source=friends_link&sk=241fee438c29affd25bec04fd28106b5] EnAccess was the first to step in with funding for this project from, and we are really happy to currently be joined by the Shell Foundation [https://shellfoundation.org/], Good Energies Foundation [https://www.goodenergies.org/], Signify Foundation [https://www.signify.com/global/our-company/signify-foundation], GIZ-DeveloPPP, [https://www.developpp.de/en/] the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office [https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-development-office](FCDO), UNDP [https://www.undp.org/], the IFC [https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/corp_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/home], and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation [https://www.eda.admin.ch/deza/en/home/sdc/portrait.html] (SDC).

Season 2, Ep 1: All Things Open Source with James Vasile, Partner at Open Tech Strategies

In this episode, I’m talking with James Vasile, a Partner in Open Tech Strategies [https://opentechstrategies.com/], a consultation firm based in New York City. This conversation is going to explore the why/why not,  the upsides and any downsides about open source in energy access. I’m going to try and cover some of the most common questions that I hear. James Vasile is a recognized expert on free and open source software. He has over fifteen years of experience as a user, developer, advocate, and advisor in all things open source; and has further expertise in licensing and community-building, as well as non-profit and small business startup. Open Tech Strategies works with a wide range of clients such as Microsoft, the MacArthur Foundation, The Red Cross. Why should people open source their work? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? What should you consider before you pick which license you want to go with?  James helps companies figure out these questions every day. Blog series mentioned in the episode: Open Source At Large [https://blog.opentechstrategies.com/category/open-source-at-large/]

Episode 05: OpenO2 (now called Resilient Oxygen R-O2)

**This project has been moved over to Resilient Oxygen and their sister organisation CREATIVenergie. Learn more at https://www.resilientoxygen.org/ The Resilient Oxygen (R-O2) Project centers around the development of an oxygen concentrator specifically designed for robustness and reliability in challenging conditions whilst being simple and affordable to repair in low resource settings (LRS). When this episode was recorded, I spoke with Joel Chaney, the Innovation Program Manager at EnAccess, as well as Phil Bonnett, an anesthesiologist who has worked in a hospital in Zambia, in Africa. The inspiration for the Open O2 project (now called Resilient Oxygen R-O2) came because EnAccess wanted to do something relevant for the world we’re living in now, which is under a lot of stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Episode 04: AgriGrid by Anka Madagasgar

Today I'm going to be talking with Camille André-Bataille, the CEO of ANKA Madagascar, about an idea for a new business model called AgriGrid - the idea of pairing access to electricity with local agricultural sectors. The AgriGrid business model refers to a hybrid organization that combines commercial opportunities in rural electrification with food & agricultural value chain development. The idea is that beyond providing electricity, an AgriGrid operator would also play an active role in developing rural food & agricultural market activity. There’s so much to explore about this idea and how to integrate energy services with agriculture - ranging from a mini-grid company that acts as a services provider to existing agricultural intermediaries, or going all the way through to a fully integrated agribusiness that grows, processes, packages, and retails its own food products – in addition to selling electricity to the community. The AgriGrid concept was created by ANKA Madagascar and Amanhã Ventures, and the EnAccess Foundation is proud to have supported this open source R&D project. All the materials can be found at enaccess.org/agrigrid.

Episode 03: The OpenPAYGO Token by Solaris Offgrid

Anyone that is selling a pay as you go device or service should know about the OpenPAYGO Token. When PAYGO technology arrived in the energy access sector, it was a game-changer. By paying small amounts of money over a longer time period, families could afford better quality and safer lighting, phone charging, and much more. But there was a frustrating problem that emerged - the integration of PAYGO into energy access products was being controlled by a handful of companies, and each company had their own closed system. Think about it like this - a distributor of solar home systems would have a box containing solar panels, a battery pack, wires, etc. This product would work exactly the same no matter who purchased it, but the distributor would have to have one supply of boxes with PAYGO technology A, one supply with PAYGO technology B, and another supply with PAYGO technology C. The frustration was felt  by both the sellers and makers of energy access products all over the world, and was (and is) an industry-wide issue. What we're talking about today with Benjamin David (CTO, Solaris Offgrid) is the big-picture solution that Solaris Offgrid designed. They took on the task of creating one free, open source, industry-standard solution called the OpenPAYGO Token. It can easily integrate with already-existing PAYGO platforms and is available for any manufacturer to implement in new devices as well.