In the article below we sit down with 2023 Top 10 hero, Nthabiseng Mosia as she shares her journey of co-founding Easy Solar and the ups and downs of running a renewable energy business in Africa’s toughest markets. She shares her journey of leading as a woman in a male-dominated field and she also shares her general views on the power sector in Africa and where our priorities as the continent should lie as we join the rest of the world in the race towards net zero. Easy Solar is a social enterprise that provides affordable solar energy solutions to off-grid communities in West Africa. Nthabiseng was born in South Africa and she co-founded the company in 2016, aiming to address the challenge of energy access in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Her work at Easy Solar has helped improve the quality of life for many by offering clean, reliable, and affordable energy solutions.

1. What inspired you to co-found Easy Solar, and how did your background lead you to this venture in renewable energy?
   
   Born in Ghana and raised in South Africa, I am a Pan-African at heart who is passionate about building homegrown solutions to the continent’s most pressing development challenges. I was cognisant from my teenage years about the centrality electricity has in daily life as South Africa's national grid began to experience load shedding, leaving my family and I scrounging around in the dark. This led to a simple, yet powerful realisation: access to reliable and affordable energy is a fundamental right, not a privilege.
   
   While I was fortunate enough to have access to electricity services (even if not always reliable), I became acutely aware, through my travels around the continent as a young working professional, that many Africans (in fact two-thirds) lack access to electricity and are still using expensive, polluting and at times toxic alternatives in the absence of the grid. These influences inspired me to pursue a Masters in Energy Resource Management at Columbia University in 2014, where I met my co-founders and subsequently started the company.
2. Could you explain Easy Solar’s business model and how it balances profitability with providing affordable energy solutions to low-income communities?
   
   Easy Solar is a leading provider of affordable, high-quality energy solutions in West Africa for those with limited or no access to the conventional grid, thereby transforming how households and businesses live, work and play. We cater to a diverse range of customers in Sierra Leone and Liberia, from off- or weak-grid clients to those seeking to supplement their existing energy sources or become more climate conscious.
   
   Our two main business units are "Pay-as-you-go," which provides plug-and-play solutions to homes and SMEs, including solar home kits, productive use appliances, and smartphones on credit through a network of agents and shops. Our target customers are typically rural and peri-urban communities who are low to middle income, and to enhance affordability, we allow them to finance their purchase over time by paying in weekly or monthly installments, with the option to pay via cash or mobile money.
   
   Our Power Solutions business unit serves development projects as well as commercial and industrial clients with world-class solar and battery storage solutions, including engineering, procurement, construction (EPC), and operations and maintenance (O&M) services.
   
   By keeping our operations lean, cross subsidizing across the two business units and leveraging technology, we ensure both affordability for our customers and financial sustainability for our business. Easy Solar's products and services have reached over 1 million people since launching operations in 2016.
3. Given that you target low-income communities, how does Easy Solar ensure financial sustainability and generate revenue over the long term?
   
   Our vision is to make energy affordable and accessible for all, and our mission is to light up lives. We’ve built the business around these core pillars, but have also been realistic about the need to balance these higher goals against the need for financial sustainability. Thus, our strategy has been to:
   
   
   • Focus on Customer Relationships: Because lower income households have challenges with an ability to pay, we’ve introduced flexible financing plans (up to 2 years) to reduce the upfront costs of purchasing solar. Supported by this are our distribution network of agents and shops, as well as our customer experience team, who are proximate to the customers, assess for creditworthiness and build an ongoing relationship that builds customer loyalty and is proactively working and adjusting where necessary payment terms to ensure customers finish their plans without undue burdens. This focus on building trust with our customers, has led to industry leading high repayment rates and customer retention.
   • Diversified Product Offering: We cater to a variety of energy needs, offering a range of solar systems and appliances. This allows us to cross subsidize higher income segments with a higher ability to pay against lower income segments.
   • Dynamic Pricing & Partnership: We tailor our pricing to customers’ ability to pay. We also work with partners such as the government/civil service, who guarantee loans that allow us to offer extended financing for government and civil service employees, with minimal credit risk.
4. Easy Solar is operating in two markets that are known to be challenging, Sierra Leone and Liberia. What strategies have you used to secure the partners you have collaborated with so far and to gain the necessary government support to ensure your success?
   
   Operating in Sierra Leone and Liberia has come with its own set of unique challenges, but we've found that building strong relationships is key. Our strategy has been to:
   
   
   • Build from the ground up and demonstrate impact: We engage communities as partners, with agents selected from within the communities, and then trained and provided support on an ongoing basis. Through this we’re able to garner trust and demonstrate impact which has provided us with credibility and a track record which is helpful when engaging with partners and the government.
   • Engage government as a private sector collective: We are founding members of the renewable energy associations in our focus countries, which meet and convene to advocate for supportive policies and are often consulted in the formation of government plans for electrification efforts.
   • Foster Transparency: We maintain open communication and accountability with our partners. Our data driven focus means we’re able to effectively conduct monitoring and evaluation on an ongoing basis.
   • Maintain alignment with partner objectives: We ensure our work actively supports national electrification strategies and sustainable development objectives, which has allowed us to garner support from multiple local and international partners.
     
     Image: Nthabiseng on a roof-mounted solar site
5. What are some of the biggest challenges Easy Solar has faced in scaling its operations—whether in raising capital, acquiring customers, or managing supply chains? Are there any key lessons you have learned from overcoming these challenges that you can share with other entrepreneurs?
   
   • Attracting, capacitating and retaining top talent: this is a challenge across our focus markets as the pool of qualified candidates is small and so constant investment is required to ensure we maintain a culture where the best people want to work and feel committed to the mission.
   • Macroeconomic shocks: probably the most substantial challenges have been the inflation, currency depreciation and cost of living crisis that has eroded the value of our revenue and receivables in the last 2-3 years, while simultaneously pinching the pocket of our customers.
   • Policy Changes: a recent set of removal of incentives for renewable products have meant higher taxes and duties at the port, which is hard to pass onto customers, especially those who are low income.
   
   Key lessons we've learned along the way:
   
   • Resilience is Crucial: Be prepared to adapt and overcome unexpected obstacles.
   • Relationships Matter: Invest in building strong relationships with your team, partners, and customers. They will help you weather the storm, especially when you’ve built a brand based on trust and external relationships centred on a deeper mission.
   • Data-Driven Decisions: Use data to inform your strategies and track your progress.
   • Lean Operations: Build a lean operating structure (even in high growth periods) that can respond quickly when capital markets dry up and the business cycle is less favourable.
6. Can you share any insights from your experience with fundraising for Easy Solar?
   
   Fundraising is a continuous journey for any growing company. We've found that for our business:
   
   • Know who you are and what your value proposition is, before bringing on board your first VC investor. It’s really important to have a sense of who you are as a company and who your end customer is, and whether you have a solution that truly addresses their pain points before bringing in external capital that demands returns. You’re much more nimble when you can run small tests and fail and learn quickly on “patient capital” like grants, venture competition funds, accelerator programs, friends and family, savings, some more “patient” impact investors etc. If you can, seek out these “lower-risk” avenues that allow you to bootstrap first, test and fail quickly, and nail your product market first first before engaging with VCs.
   • Ensure mutual alignment of what’s important when seeking out investors: Seek out investors who align with your commercial objectives and social mission (relevant for social entrepreneurs). Particularly in high-growth periods, investors can exert pressure to move you in various directions, especially when they hold board positions. Make sure the future pathways and values you have mapped out for your business match with your investors. It doesn’t have to be perfect alignment but some overlap of a shared vision of what’s important and what values are driving decision making is key.
   • Have a never say die attitude: Be prepared for people to not believe in your idea and to say no. You’ll hear that alot, more so the earlier stage you are. But persevere, especially when you’ve taken the time to know who you are, what your value proposition and competitive advantages are, and build a track record with a diligent operation and path to profitability. Eventually one of those doors will open.
7. What is next for Easy Solar in terms of growth, new markets, or innovations?
   
   We're excited about the future of Easy Solar! Our focus is on:
   
   • Expanding our Reach: We plan to bring affordable energy to more communities across West Africa. We’re particularly excited in addition to our core “pay-as-you-go model”, to work with partners to test new service delivery models (such as “energy as a service”) that ensure we reach the hardest to reach parts of our markets at a truly affordable price point and ensure no one is left behind
   • Expansion of C&I: with rising generator costs and more organisations looking to become less dependent on the grid and climate conscious, we’re excited to see continued growth in our offering for commercial and industrial clients as well as development projects like schools, hospitals etc.
   • Financial Inclusion: With the millions of data we have on repayment behaviour after extending hundreds of thousands of solar loans, we are exploring ways to leverage this to provide access to other financial services.
     
     
     
     Image: An easy solar agent showcasing Easy Solar products
8. As a woman co-founding a company in the energy sector, how has your experience been navigating what is often a male-dominated industry? How does your perspective as a woman shape your leadership?
   
   • As a woman, I’ve had to learn to never apologise for wanting a seat at the table and pursuing my dreams. For African women in particular, there will be times, in fact more often than not, when you look around a room (whether it’s of investors, fellow entrepreneurs, or potential partners) and wonder where your place is in this world. Don't let feeling like an outlier deter you from being the change in representation that you want to see in the world.
   • In my opinion, being daring enough to create something that makes people’s lives better means that you belong there, because that's courage. And courage and perseverance in entrepreneurship are everything. It's not going to be easy and that's not necessarily because you're a woman, that's because entrepreneurship is not for the fainthearted. Being a woman can make it harder, and that means you have to have a doubly thick skin.
   • Try to seek out mentors and safe spaces that can help you deal with the challenges that are unique to being an African woman in a western male-dominated space. I have found that this makes all the difference and can help the tough times seem a little less darker and lonely.
   • But most of all, my advice is jump. Find an ecosystem to nurture your ideas, because going at it alone is virtually impossible. Go after what you want. Dare to go after your dreams, no matter how ridiculous they or the notion of you being the one to achieve them seems.
9. Looking back on your entrepreneurial journey, would you choose this path again? What has been the most rewarding aspect, and is there anything you would do differently?
   
   • Running a business over the last 8 years has been a challenging journey, with many hurdles and pitfalls along the way. If anything, the one thing you can be assured of, is that the next challenge or fire to put out is always around the corner. But I stay and endure because I deeply believe in our mission and vision.
   • At an individual level, for many of our customers it's their first time having access to any form of electricity. To listen to them share their stories (whether it's how their children can now study better at night, how they feel more secure at night, or how they appreciate the customer service and dedication that our sales team provides them with), that gives me this humbling feeling that I've created something beyond myself; that the work that we do as a company has meaning for our customers and their families.
   • In addition, the challenge of having to constantly learn on the spot, of knowing you'll feel uncomfortable and uncertain on a day-to-day basis is also such a rush. Everyday looks different because you have to respond and adapt and give your all. That's something I find incredibly satisfying to wake up to and it’s why I’ve stayed for as long as I have. The only thing I would do differently would have been to have more belief in myself and have the confidence that the work we’re doing is important, regardless of what the naysayers said along the way.
10. What are your overall thoughts on the current state of the energy sector in Africa, particularly as we balance the urgent need for total electrification with the global push for green energy and a net-zero future? In your opinion, where should Africa’s priorities lie in this complex transition?
    
    • Energy is a fundamental human right, and the fact that almost 600 million people on the continent lack access to modern energy, to me, is a grave injustice, especially when you consider that electricity is the foundation of our world today. It's at the centre of communication technology, financial services, AI, modern agriculture, industry, and education. Our continent and people will never fully compete and take centre stage until we have the foundation of any modern economy, which is affordable, reliable and consistent electricity.
    • Sub-Saharan Africa, is home to 85% of the world's unelectrified population. Under the current trajectory, 660 million people are projected to still be without electricity by 2030. However Africa has the opportunity to build a new kind of electricity system. We have the opportunity of looking backwards and forwards at the same time. To face the challenge of electrification with the knowledge of the true impacts and externalities involved.
    • Currently renewables are the most cost effective form of generating electricity. Solar in particular is modular, which means it can be built at a centralised or decentralised level, allowing for rapid deployment of off-grid systems to complement utility scale plants.
    • However, I also believe it is also unfair to impose a penalty on Africans for considering a blend of technologies, including nuclear, gas and fossil fuels. An integrated view needs to look at all the low cost options that enable all African countries to achieve universal electrification, and where renewables are not the most practical (because of storage or grid stability considerations) then climate finance can be used to offset the added cost of building for those deficiencies and make renewables truly competitive.

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