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Work Update

Handover Document and Business Plan - December Energy Assessment

Abstract: The December Energy Assessment team was faced with the challenging task of providing the people of Timor-Leste with a cost-effective, reliable and sustainable power supply. The July team found that solar power was the best approach, thus it was decided to pursue this further. Additional empathising led to several very interested clients, proving solar power had potential in Dili. Contact was made with Hugh Collett from IMEX Tropical, who had identical goals but was already...

by Nic Makram
Dec 23, 2017

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Nic Makram

Dec 23, 2017

Revenue Stream

Timor-Leste: Proposed commission based revenue streams

The Energy Assessment team here in Timor-Leste is approaching the end of our third week, and boy have we accomplished a lot. We have seen much more interest in solar panels than we initially thought we would coming into this month, and are very close to making some sales. In the next week, we aim to sign a partnership with Hugh Collett, from IMEX Tropical, who is the Timor-Leste agent for Sundaya, an Indonesian solar company. You can read more about this partnership in another of our...

by Nic Makram
Dec 14, 2017

by
Nic Makram

Dec 14, 2017

Work Update

Thinking Outside the Grid

Atauro Island, sitting about 25km north of Dili, and visible from our accommodation on a clear day, has been deemed by Conservation International to have the world’s most biodiverse waters. I have seen for myself the incredible coral reefs sitting no more than 20 metres from the shore, and have seen some of the vast range of species of fish that occupy these waters. With a population of only around 8000, Atauro Island is truly an untouched paradise, which made it all the more surprising when...

by Nic Makram
Dec 11, 2017

Dec 11, 2017

[JULY 19] [TIMOR] Fuel Home Delivery - Distribution Channels July 2019

Hey Deus,

Sounds like it will be an interesting experiment and love the way you've got the simultaneous experiment running with pick up and the overlap metric!

Is this experiment being run just in the Dili area, or is it extending out into the rural regions? My question being whether the data from those within Dili would correlate to those in the more rural communities - which would change the actions on of this experiment (D&N offer rural home delivery, but Vinod Patel offer free delivery within Dili as far as I'm aware - so relationship with D&N not necessarily required if rural communities prefer pick-up).

1 month ago
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[FEB 19][COLLECTION]

Status label added: Work Update

2 months ago
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[EXPERIMENT ADOPTED]: PAYMENT METHODS (EXPERIENCE AND USAGE) - FarmEd Timor December 2018 (UPDATE)

Hey Julia,

Those sound like some really good target points, with 60 people being a good sample size, I'm keen to see your team hustle towards that! I am wondering, not knowing about the mobile payment systems in Timor, if you're aware of any current mobile payment systems in place? Is there more than one platform through which people are able to conduct mobile payments?

For example, let's say A and B offer a mobile payment system. If you find 30% of people know how to use mobile money, but half use A and the other half use B, then there is a new variable introduced and your metrics become somewhat invalidated. I understand you would still be very much in the early stages of research, but this may become a factor.

You should still follow the experiment as outlined, but be aware of the impacts of multiple mobile payment platforms being available!

4 months ago
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[Key Activities]: Fuel Fiji - Supply Chain - July 2018

Hi Cris, appreciate the comment and always love getting your input! I would have to disagree with you on this one though. While clay is readily available locally as well as being sustainable and having adequate thermal properties, I don't believe it is suitable for the target market.

One of the key value propositions of the Rocket Stove in Fiji is it's portability. From my understandings of the clay prototype developed over summer, it was significantly heavier than the metal prototypes, thus limiting it's portability and convenience.

Adding to this, clay is arguably a lot more difficult to manufacture, especially at large scale, into the shapes that are required for a rocket stove. It would possibly require specialists to craft the stoves, a slow and un-scalable process. I believe the prospect of manufacturing the 5.0 from raw materials, while not particularly cheap, is a lot simpler, as well as the fact that the machines used (laser cutters etc.) will maintain consistency across products, as opposed to the inconsistencies that would likely be seen in clay stove production. In any product, consistency is key.

Finally, setting up a clay stove supply chain in Fiji is one thing, but this would not be easily translated to any other countries in the commercialisation process. The intention of the 5.0 design was to allow for flatpacking, thus meaning, in the long term, the raw materials can be sourced from one area and shipped to any country for manufacture. A clay stove would mean raw materials need to be sourced in each country, and so essentially a new supply chain would be needed for each country. Fiji has an incredibly small market size, with a population of less than 1 million, and so spending time setting up a supply chain for clay stoves is, in my eyes, not as valuable as sticking with the current model and improving on this until we reach a long term stage in which importation of raw materials is possible and we can scale up.

Of course, I have next to zero knowledge when it comes to clay stoves, so would be interested to see your response to the above points and get some insights into clay stoves!

8 months ago
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[Work Update]: Fuel Cambodia - From Stoves to Coconut Briquettes- July 2018

Hey guys,
Awesome to see you stuck with it and were able to pivot so smoothly after discovering the incredible presence of NLS in Cambodia! I've got a few questions for you just to see what your future actions are on these alternative fuel sources. I don't expect you to have the answers to a lot of these questions, but just want to see if you've done any preliminary research into these areas:

1. What is the current fuel source used for these NLS stoves? Assuming it is just standard firewood, what is the sort of access/willingness of those who own the stoves to gather this firewood? My key question here is to identify whether there is actually a want/need for these alternative fuel sources.

2. Assuming you follow the route of coconut husks as a fuel source, I can see a few things you would need to find out in order to claim this as a viable pathway for the project:
a. What are the actual social benefits of having this as an alternative fuel source? Again, assuming firewood is the current fuel source, what pain point are you addressing? e.g. is it more efficient, does it last longer, are there any health benefits? If testing were needed to be conducted, is this something that could be done in Cambodia, or would it need to be done elsewhere such as Australia?
b. Also, in order to make this a sustainable business, you would need to make a profit of some sort on the sales of the briquettes. Again, assuming a current fuel source of gathered firewood (which I would imagine is free, or at least not hugely expensive?), you would need to have a fairly low price-point on the briquettes. I can imagine the briquettes are fairly labour intensive to make, so how would you balance these costs of labour with the revenue of the briquette sales.
c. Is there anyone else in this space in Cambodia already? What is the sort of competition present in terms of alternative fuel sources?

These are the main focuses I can see for this project moving forward. Again, I in no way expect you to have concrete answers for any of these points, but am curious to see how much you have looked into this in the short time since you've pivoted. Hope final week of project is treating you guys well!

8 months ago
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Timor-Leste: Proposed commission based revenue streams

Obviously there is still a lot of ground work that would need to be done to make this a thing. I was in contact with Mallory during the last month to see how the Malawi Energy project was going, and I know they were looking at small scale solar systems for households and stuff, so I figure this could work as Sundaya offer a few small scale options, but can't say for sure if this would be the correct solution for Malawi, and would need further input form them.

We were in the process of getting in contact with Sundaya towards the end of project, and this should be something that gets done in January, so as long as the Malawi and Timor teams stay in close contact, we should be able to assess the viability of this working as a partnership.

Dec 23, 2017
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Timor-Leste: Proposed commission based revenue streams

Totally understand that a whole lot of thought needs to be put into this.

When we first came across Hugh and Sundaya in Timor, we found that they were doing exactly the same thing we were wanting to do, but were months ahead of us. Our entire team was opposed to effectively becoming 'salesmen', but outside of doing this, there was no huge potential for us to undertake a solar project here (in my opinion). I had a chat to Piatek about this, and he made a good point that one common business tactic is to partner with someone who is already established and doing what you want to do, and to observe how they operate. You can then identify any gaps in the process and go from there. That's what we intend to do in Timor.

In terms of going to new countries, I think going to Malawi first would be most viable (as there is currently already an Energy project looking at solar operating there now, and Sundaya already operate in Africa, so importing channels should already exist to an extent). If we were to operate as the primary agent in Malawi, my thinking is that we can do exactly what we wanted to do in Timor, in Malawi. We would identify the target market that is in need of solar panels, utilise Sundaya to supply the materials, train local "TAFE" students to aid in the installation and maintenance of the systems. PE could then just operate as the facilitator and handle the logistics of the operation in terms of locating customers, handling importation and sorting distribution within the country.

What are your thoughts on this? Any feedback would be really good, so we can include in the handover reports for the next team here.

Dec 20, 2017
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Timor-Leste: Proposed commission based revenue streams

Hey Tink,
re subscriptions: the phone providers currently use a text based system to receive credit/data, which I believe WISI looked into utilising back in Feb. This would be a very good way for us to organise payments here, as just about anyone who has a phone uses this system.

However, in terms of operation in Timor, it will be pretty hard for us to have a huge say in the way the business is run. We are essentially working as the salesmen for Hugh (the Sundaya agent in Timor), we have very little control over how things are run and will mostly be going out and making sales. However, having done some quick research into the SolarCity business model, it seems to me that Sundaya are looking to utilise a similar business model, and are doing so through Hugh.

I think the best outcome happens if we are able to expand into Malawi, and potentially Cambodia and Fiji as well. This would give us more control as the primary agent for Sundaya, and we would have more flexibility in terms of the business model etc.

My real question is whether or not this is something that PE would consider doing. Is it feasible for us to enter a large partnership with a solar panel manufacturer and act as their agents in the countries that we operate in?

Dec 18, 2017
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Timor-Leste: Proposed commission based revenue streams

Cheers Will!

We're going to try and run with the 5% commission and see how we go to start with, just to build trust with Hugh and Sundaya and hopefully if we show them how much good work we are doing we can bump up this number.
As I said though, I think our opportunity lies more in expanding to other PE countries and becoming the primary agent, especially due to the minimal market expansion that I can see here in Timor.

Dec 15, 2017
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Timor-Leste: Proposed commission based revenue streams

Cheers Will, we're definitely starting to get somewhere.

1. While 5% doesn't seem like much, it actually is quite reasonable given the circumstances. Hugh himself is only getting 15% commission of the total sale from Sundaya, that's for handling importation and storage of the panels and materials, as well as making the actual sales themselves. He is willing to give us one third of that (ie. we get the 5%, he retains 10%) for just doing the sales. Considering we actually don't do that much (just need to get the sales and do some basic assessment), 5% isn't all that bad.

2. Sundaya have two current methods. The main way is just an outright sale (this is likely what we will be going with for the most part), while the other method that is just to be used for schools at this stage is to sell the products with a payback period, where the customer pays Sundaya a decreasing amount of money per year until it is fully repaid.

In terms of offering subscription prices, it's fairly tough to do this with the rural community, as it is hard to reach them and they are not used to this sort of payment system, meaning we would often be following them up for payments and it just isn't worth it with how difficult it is to get to these communities.

One thing that we are looking into adding on is a battery system, which is something that a lot of the hotels are interested in. Sundaya is currently not looking at providing battery storage with the panels (targeting day time energy users), but the logistics of this is looking fairly complicated and will require some more research.

Hope I've explained this okay! If you've got any other questions please ask, the team is loving your feedback and thoughts!

Dec 14, 2017
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(Dis)Connecting with customers between project months

Yeah as you guys have said, the handover period between months is an inefficiency in the way PE currently operates in country. Each team only has 4 weeks in country, and currently - even if the handover documents from the previous team are very concise - it takes a few days to properly get into the project and then you spend a reasonable amount of time throughout project writing handover documents for the next team, taking away time from the project itself.

This process makes it hard to efficiently make progress on the project, so if we can improve the handover process and make it as autonomous as possible, I think we would see more progress made by each month on the actual project.

It's good to see PE currently looking at different handover processes, ie. using a business plan as well as a handover document, but work can still be done in regards to the contact records. Teich has got some good ideas about how we can improve these systems so hopefully we can trial these out in the near future.