YOLK's Solar Cow Charging System

Access to energy and education are among the basic needs to be met especially for the girls and women living in off-grid area. Solar Cow is an innovative solution to tackle girls labour by improving access to energy and quality education. When the system is installed in schools, each student is given a portable power bank to charge during class. This power bank has a built-in (all-in-one) cell-phone charger with LED lighting. With this multi-use device, by sending their girls to school, the parents are rewarded with safe, affordable and clean energy access for homes and cost benefit. Lack of education and access to energy are fundamental challenges that keep many people, especially, girls and women in developing countries vulnerable. If Solar Cow was scaled globally, it would help enhance the quality education and better living environment for them through bringing them to school and energy distributing the household level.

Today, 29% girls between the age of 5-17, living in Sub-Saharan Africa, are suffering among 246 million children in the world that are engaged in child labour. The Sub-Saharan Africa’s case is the largest proportion of child labourers. In general, the children’s working time is from 21 to 43 hours determined by their age. International reports show that especially, school attendance drops sharply for children engaged solely in economic activities, and in all regions, girls’ labour is reported almost equal as boys. Child labour can cause injuries, sexual and physical abuse to the involved children, and mostly, the children miss educational opportunities to obtain qualifications and higher skills. Parents themselves play a major role in sending girls to work instead of investing in their education and they view work more valuable than education. This is why the girls are taken out of school for the house work, early marriage and domestic employment. Yet, when parents can benefit from sending their girls to school, this will encourage them to do so instead of having girls to be sent to work.

YOLK’s Solar Cow system is a photovoltaic charging station consisted of 250 portable multi-function power banks to charge cell phone and use LED lamp given to girls attending classes. 

Installing Solar Cows in schools and giving each student the power bank (Solar Milk) of 3,000mA capacity helps them to stay and study at school while their power banks are charged.  This helps the girls to be freed from house labour and have more opportunities for quality education while studying at school. Bringing these power banks after class rewards families for sending their girls to school with access to electricity and the power bank's functional benefits. This also cuts power distribution costs. The power bank given to each student is designed not to be charged at the general charging stations, only the schools where the Solar Cow is installed. Hence, this encourages the parents to continue sending their children to school for the energy access and benefit, and in turn helps the children to have more educational opportunities to come to school. Also, each power bank a unique electronic ID for the automatic user data tracking system, and this technology helps collecting the rigorous data of the students school attendance.

YOLK’s Solar Cow aims to break cycles of poverty of BOP families living in off-grid areas caused by lack of access to education and energy for the better quality of life. As the families need of more income, the children are often sent to work instead of going to school.

When the children miss out on education provided at school, their chances for quality of life and better earning capacity is also limited. Moreover, when the families cannot access electricity, they have limited chances for studying and house work in hours of darkness.

Solar Cow improves the lives of students and their families by providing solar energy on the household level which incentivizes the parents when their girls attend school. The parents can save money for paying for kerosene, cell-phone charging or other alternative energy source by sending their girls to school while the girls can attend more school days and gain educational opportunities for a better life.

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Solar Cows present an innovative model of centralized charging infrastructure paired with distribution to homes through students’ daily school commute. Distributing hundreds of batteries from school to each households bypasses cost and accessibility barriers caused by connecting infrastructure to each household in remote areas. Therefore, people can benefit from convenient, safe green energy that is obtainable through SHS or mini-grids, but at a fraction of the cost of these systems. These systems are even cheaper than the current energy sources used by BOP households; charging kiosks for charging cell phones and kerosene lamps.  By using solar based energy instead of fossil fuel (charcoal or kerosene) with an LED lamp, it increases the level of lighting, hence, the energy efficiency of using resources. Lighting Solar Cow charging system improves energy efficiency by distributing the generated energy to each user at the household level.

YOLK’s Solar Cow battery charging system is an innovative and affordable way to provide energy, as well as encouraging access to education in areas where low-income families may be tempted to send children to work instead of school. The solar charging systems are installed in schools, where each student is given a power bank to charge during class. Getting children to carry the batteries home not only cuts out any “last mile” infrastructure costs of power distribution, it also rewards their school attendance with the tangible benefit of clean and affordable energy.

Since the distributed Power Banks to the beneficiary girls are only compatible with Solar Cows, this forms a closed system, preventing theft or misappropriation. Each battery also has a unique ID matched to an individual student, meaning it cannot be charged by anyone else. This ID also collects data on student’s attendance and charging use, building an evidence base on system use and increased school attendance.  With one battery per family, each system provides light for 6 hours and enough power to charge cell phones. As such, Solar Cows can provide a basic energy supply to a whole village while preventing children from being involved in child (girls) labour, but securing studying time at school. 

Energy poverty reduces quality of life, robs people of time, affects health, and reduces opportunities for income generation. Solar Cows are helping people to access energy to improve these aspects of their lives. Solar Cows have given 5,000 people increased access to energy to date, enabling them to use LEDs to be productive in the hours of darkness, make more use of cell phones for communications and mobile payments. Across countries where Solar Cows are operating, children given batteries increased their school attendance by around 8% and the number studying at home increased to 52% compared to 9% by using the Solar Cow charged LED lamp lighting when we compare the rate before and after the Solar Cow intervention.

Our theory of change with Solar Cow is through providing energy access, the children and families will have more educational and self-development opportunities by transforming the life pattern.

For example, installed in off-grid areas of developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Solar Cow systems charge portable batteries, which students bring to school and take home fully charged. These batteries called "Solar Milk (or Power Milk) charges appliances such as cell phones, provides light. Solar Cows are more affordable, accessible and powerful than their solar and non-solar alternatives. For customers, they are ten times cheaper than charging kiosks, three times more powerful than solar lanterns. Our two pilot programs showed that instead of paying KSH 20 for a 500MA (at charging station), parents willingly opt for charging 3,000MA for half the price (with Solar Cow). Given this opportunity to obtain more power at a cheaper cost, the Solar Cow systems incentivize families to send kids to school and pay the daily fees. The system also discourages the use of low-quality fuels (kerosene and diesel generators) that annually poison millions of Africans. From the manufacturing side, the modular nature of our solar panels makes replacement and maintenance affordable and easy.

Until now we have distributed about 800 portable batteries for households to serve around 5,000 people. In one year, it depends on how many solar cows are installed, yet we aim to serve at least 2,000,000 people, and 10,000,000 by 2025 which is in five years.

We aim to reach to 10,000,000 Solar Cow beneficiaries by 2025. To do so, we aim to move to a franchise model, with local entrepreneurs taking over the maintenance and operation of systems. We have found indications that Solar Cows can be commercially viable in future. For example, at Mchinjiri school in Kwale, Kenya, user uptake is increasing, even with a $2-$3/month user fee. We can expect such returns in other high-population schools in similar contexts, enabling system operation to become a business. For example: • If 500 students pay $3/month for Solar Cow charging, generating $1,500/month, the entrepreneur draw a $300 salary, with $100 reserve for repairs, $100 to reinvest in the community and return $1,000 to YOLK to cover system costs. This model will enable the solution to scale up quickly and with momentum. Meanwhile, for lower-income users such as in in Mtimbwani, Kenya, we will apply a hybrid model with the capital costs of Solar Cows covered by donors in order to reduce user fees. In such cases, $1/month user fee will be sufficient, generating $500/month from 500 students. This revenue can be divided as above, without the $1,000 return to YOLK. In this ways, we can make our Solar Cow running sustainable while achieving the goals to serve people with making revenue.

The existing current barriers are 1) technological risk, 2) financial supply chain issue and 3) legal consideration. Firstly, technological risk is related to the system breakdown which would prevent users from charging batteries and therefore reduce revenue generation and/or raise repair costs. Secondly, as YOLK is based in Korea and the target beneficiaries are mainly in off-grid areas of African countries, the cost-effectiveness of supply chain needs to be considered. Thirdly, the importing process and taxation can be a cost barrier since the rules in countries are applied differently depending on customer service. This taxation can increase Solar Cow’s cost, hence, out product’s price competiveness can be affected. Market barrier’s due to the policy change needs to be considered as well. As Solar Cow’s main target and beneficiaries are the people have limited access to electricity, living in off-grid area, when the future national grids could provide YOLK’s target customers with another energy source, YOLK’s customer market will be relatively reduced. 

First of all, the technological risk of the system breakdown can be overcome by training local staff to install, maintain and repair so that any disruption from technology failure can be reduced at a low cost. Secondly, financial supply chain issue can also be amended by having the local staff to assemble the system in-country instead of importing the whole system. Ensuring the country’s customer policy on that solar system related taxation is free can be another way lowering the cost barriers to reach out to more customers. Lastly, regarding the reduced off-grid area is unavoidable, yet the International Energy Agency estimates that some 720 million people will still not have access to electricity by 2040. Moreover, it can be said that the charges for connection to national grid can be costly, exceeding the low level of income of the people. In this regards, YOLK’s Solar Cow can still have cost-effectiveness in the market towards the target customers.

5 full-time staff are working for our solution

YOLK is well-positioned because it has the right
team that is executing all parts of the project with the people from various background-designer, contents creator, international development professionals and business developer are in the team to make the solution better and work.  The YOLK team created a vision, developed it into a practical solution, implemented the solution and caused a change in the daily lives of thousands of people. It started from conceptualizing the problem and realizing that seemingly distant issues in education, access to electricity and child labor, perhaps can be connected and their relationship can be regulated by the Solar Cow. 

Before the Solar Cow project found its beginnings in our station, we had been developing the newest technology in solar energy sector, our expertise peaking with the creation of the smallest portable solar charger “Solarade” and world’s thinnest and lightest solar charger “Solar Paper”, acknowledged for its expertise by CES Innovation Award and ISPO. 

1) Energy for Impact is the organization that YOLK is partnering with in order to implement the pilot projects in Kenya to serve communities living in off-grid area. The site-selection, charging system installation, daily monitoring and user related research have been conducted through the partnership.

2)  E3Empower is YOLK’s partnering organization in Tanzania to serve the beneficiary school’s students and their families living in rural area without energy access. Monitoring the system and students attendance records has been conducted through the partnership based on Korea International Cooperation Agency’s funding. 

3) Korea Food for the Hungry International has been partnering with YOLK to select the possible site for the system installation in order to provide electricity and encourage the students’ school attending. 

Our business model is to generate revenue through marketing Solar Cows to potential system donors and generating charging fees from the end-users. Our business model provides energy access to the families living in off-grid area without electricity, better living environment with lighting and educational opportunities to the children who go to school. YOLK’s business model can operate as a solely commercial or a hybrid model supported by donor funds. YOLK’s commercial business model is comparable to that of a solar charging kiosk model – either as a) a franchiser selling or leasing Solar Cow systems to operators to run in schools, or b) as a B2C service provider.

Solar Cow is both sustainable in terms of product design and expected impact. A central location of the solar panels and the charging system facilitates easy installation, maintenance and repair. While connecting energy infrastructure directly to homes (e.g., with grid connections or solar home systems [SHS]) would require technicians to make visits to individual households, Solar Cow systems are easier to access at a central location. The Solar Cow system can be financially sustainable even with low charging fees because of its unique way of distributing energy to off-grid rural households. During COVID-19, the representatives of 250 houses will charge batteries at the stations next to schools, and this being a cost-effective way of supplying electricity because it bridges the challenging “last mile” of power provision without any energy transmission infrastructure. The modular nature of the solar panels means that if one part malfunctions only this component needs to be repaired or replaced. This also makes it easier to adjust the capacity of the system based on the size of the school and level of demand. 

The Solve Challenge gives us an inspiration that our solution can change the world, and this is what Solar Cows can provide to overcome complex issues of energy access and child labour. We cannot leave the girls and women waiting for decades for national electricity grids to reach them and for better educational opportunity.  Solar Cows are an innovative and sustainable way to bring energy to them for the bright future. The prize money will be game-changing in establishing Solar Cows’ market presence and demonstrating the viability of our business at this early stage. Thus, the potential benefits stemming from this award are immeasurable. Female students in rural Tanzania who use a Solar Cow staged a performance to show how it has changed their lives. When I saw the children crawling during their play(showing performance), I didn’t know what they were doing; their teacher told me they were being cows. They wanted to show that before the Solar Cow came to their school, they stayed home to tend livestock, but now their parents send them to class thanks to this special cow. This play was more than a drama; it was children’s hope becoming reality. Thus, through short-term energy distribution we can encourage learning that will increase these children’s education in the long term.

We aim to reach to 10,000,000 Solar Cow beneficiaries by 2025. To do so, we aim to move to a franchise model, with local entrepreneurs taking over the maintenance and operation of systems. We have found indications that Solar Cows can be commercially viable in future. For example, at Mchinjiri school in Kenya, user uptake is increasing, even with a $2-$3/month user fee. We can expect such returns in other high-population schools in similar contexts, enabling system operation to become a business. For example, if 500 students pay $3/month for Solar Cow charging, generating $1,500/month, the entrepreneur draw a $300 salary, with $100 reserve for repairs, $100 to reinvest in the community and return $1,000 to YOLK to cover system costs. This model will enable the solution to scale up quickly and with momentum. 

YOLK has inspired partners to work with it, harmonising efforts and increasing our impact. We worked with iNGO Energy 4 Impact (E4I) to implement two Solar Cows in Kenya for a project sponsored by international initiative Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030. E4I connected YOLK with OVO Foundation, with which E4I had installed 300 solar systems in Kenyan schools. OVO has now allowed YOLK to fit battery chargers to these systems so that energy can also reach homes. Through such partnerships, YOLK saves a lot on capital outlay, helping to scale up in different countries.

YOLK's Solar Cow system is designed to enhance girls' school attendance and the opportunity for the quality education so that they can have obtain more skills and knowledge for the future growth. The prize will allow YOLK to install more Solar Cows in the off-grid area where more girls' labour needs to be tackled.