In recent years, the off-grid energy industry has seen the emergence and growth of an effective and impactful Productive Use of Renewable Energy (PURE) sector. In the last two years alone, this has led to the sale of over 60,000 solar water pumps and off-grid refrigeration units, and a range of other appliances commonly used to drive income generation. The 2018 ‘Powering Opportunity: The Economic Impact of Off-Grid Solar’ and subsequent reports highlighted that off-grid solutions are catalyzing economic activity, creating income opportunities and improving quality of life for off-grid households and communities. Looking forward, it is undisputable that PURE technologies will be particularly critical for boosting food security, enabling rural enterprise, and realizing the global goals of broad and inclusive development. Yet, despite the huge interest and excitement in the PURE space, this sector remains underexplored, and the potential of PURE technologies is not well known by key stakeholders, including policy makers and user groups at both global and national levels.
Based on feedback received from members and sector stakeholders, GOGLA recognises that a more focussed effort will be needed to give this growing part of the off-grid industry the support it needs to reach its full potential. GOGLA’s PURE Working group provides a platform for PURE stakeholders to discuss and identify cross cutting issues such as stunting market growth and leverage best practices to develop policy and other actions geared towards creating an enabling environment and addressing challenges faced by the PURE sector to enable it to fully scale.
Objectives
GOGLA’s PURE Working Group provides members with an opportunity to participate in a platform that:
- Explores the potential of PURE and elaborates the support it needs to reach its full potential in the off-grid sector.
- Identifies sector constraints and maps out policy and other enabling environment actions to enable the sector to scale.
- Explore business models and financial innovations needed to facilitate growth in the sector.
Format
The PURE working group will be a forum for consultation and coordination on relevant activities and outputs in the PURE sector The working group will play a crucial part in providing feedback to key documents and strategies and agree on matters such as Industry Opinions. The PURE working group meetings will be held on a quarterly basis or as needed. A Chair and a co[1]chair will be selected by the working group for approval by the GOGLA Board. The Chairs represent member interests and will support the secretariat in co-creating the content for Working Group Meetings and guiding the conversation during the working group calls.
Membership
The target audience of the working group includes both industry and Associate GOGLA members and select partners active in the PURE space who can identify cross cutting issues and share best practices to guide the development of actions geared towards creating an enabling environment and addressing challenges faced by the PURE sector. If you would like to join the PURE Working Group, kindly contact Collin Gumbu at c.gumbu@gogla.org
GOGLA Working Groups are open to GOGLA members only. If you are a member, please log in to your member account.