Accelerating clean energy access in sub-Sahara Africa 

Hivos-Triodos Fonds has provided a USD 4.5 million loan to Sun King, the world’s largest off-grid energy company that operates across Africa. The company provides affordable, reliable and clean energy solutions to people living off the grid, thus contributing to inclusive growth and a low-carbon economy. This investment aims to allow the company to scale up its activities.

Bridging Africa’s rural energy divide

800 million people worldwide – 85% of them in Africa – have no access to electricity. Millions rely on expensive, polluting, and unsafe energy sources, such as kerosene for light and diesel generators for power. This energy deficit restricts economic growth, education, healthcare, and overall quality of life, especially in rural communities.

Sun King leads the solar home system transformation 

Sun King, formally known as Greenlight Planet, designs, finances, and installs solar systems. Sun King designs its own range of solar solutions, from entry-level solar kits that provide multi-room lighting, phone charging, and appliance power, through to larger solar inverter systems capable of powering homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, and more. Through a network of 41,000 agents across Africa, Sun King goes home by home and business by business, selling, installing and servicing its products.

To make solar affordable, customers can pay in installments over 12 to 24 months, often for around USD 0.19 per day, roughly equivalent to what many previously spent on kerosene, battery-operated torches, or candles. Today, Sun King is deploying approximately 350,000 solar kits every month across 11 African countries and 2 Asian countries.  

New products: cooking, cooling and connectivity 

Harnessing the same product design, smart financing, and hyperlocal distribution channels, Sun King has expanded its offering to underserved consumers across Africa, combining the launch of its own smartphone and solar-powered fridge-freezer with the scale-up of its clean cooking technologies and services.

Unlocking access with Pay-As-You-Go financing 

To date, Sun King has extended USD 1.9 billion in financing to its customers to over ten million customers; over 90% of Sun Kings products are sold with the support of financing. Customers can pay primarily via mobile money, the use of which has grown tremendously over the past years. In a country like Uganda, for example, more than 70% of the population uses mobile money, making real-time, remote solar financing payments frictionless and practical.

The investment from Hivos-Triodos Fonds – granted through the bond issuance platform of Symbiotics – will enable Sun King to further expand its distribution of solar kits and solutions to rural communities in sub-Sahara Africa.