Clean Energy Demonstrators come from the local communities they serve. Often, they have been members of women's financial inclusion communities or field officers in the past. Demonstrating clean energy is a valuable source of income for them. Further, they become trusted community clean energy leaders. This builds up a long-term “human capital” in the community around clean energy.
The households buy the clean energy products, typically at the market price. This is a best practice from the financial inclusion sector.
Give-away programs destroy the local economy because when you give away products, any local supplier or retailer of that product then must go out of business. No one will ever pay money for a product that they think should be given to them for free.
MEC supports the local suppliers and retailers with training and startup capital. Local suppliers are part of the economic fabric of the community.
Microentrepreneurs do not have to worry that their clean energy product will break. If a product breaks, they can bring it to their local financial inclusion group leader to access after-sales support.
Typical partner institutions are able to reach several hundred thousand clients with clean energy within five years of joining the MEC program.
