Market Assessment and Critical Sectoral Analysis of the Off-Grid Solar Industry in India

Market Assessment and Critical Sectoral Analysis of the Off-Grid Solar Industry in India

Greenlight Planet, India, was funded by US-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF) to conduct a comprehensive market assessment that entailed a critical sectoral analysis of the off-grid solar industry in India. The study planned to understand the energy access situation from a demand and supply perspective, analyze PAYG (pay-as-you-go) sectoral trends for solar products and enable the development of an evidence-backed strategy to expand solar PAYG business in India. The study included collecting primary data from households across five states in India. The purpose of collecting preliminary data was two-fold- (a) to provide on-ground insights corresponding to the study objectives; (b) to identify areas for Greenlight Planet to expand its operations.

Sambodhi provided consulting services to Greenlight Planet on the aforementioned task.  Sambodhi was involved in the following tasks for the study to understand:

• the off-grid solar market in India – state of the sector, trends, and challenges in India, 
• the off-grid consumers – behavior, influences, and challenges,
• developing a methodology to access the market potential of the off-grid solar sector in India,
• the landscape around the digitization of payments, and
• the competition intensity in the off-grid solar sector in India.

Against this backdrop, Sambodhi adopted a mixed methodology that involved desk-bound secondary research and primary data collection. The analysis and insights gathered from the information acted as inputs for Greenlight Planet’s market expansion strategy.