OREANDA-NEWS. November 22, 2012. To enable off-grid, low-income communities to meet some of their most basic everyday needs, Total has introduced Awango by Total, a line of innovative, reliable solar lighting and phone charging solutions.

Energy is an essential driver of social and economic development. Yet access to electricity is a daily struggle for 1.3 billion people worldwide. Their traditional lighting sources — kerosene lamps, candles and disposable batteries — are inefficient, unsuited to new uses and account for a significant percentage of spending by base of the pyramid households.

Total is committed to fostering the emergence of innovative technological and marketing solutions to develop a more efficient, reliable and affordable lineup that is also economically viable enough to be sustainable and widely adopted.

For more than a year, all of the components in the Awango by Total line have been tested by customers in four pilot countries — Cameroon, Indonesia, Kenya and the Republic of the Congo — with 125,000 lamps and solar kits sold. Deployment is now being stepped up, with rollout proceeding through 2013 in eight more countries: Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.

" We’re aiming to sell one million solar lamps by 2015, which will improve the living standards of around five million people,” says Christophe de Margerie, Total’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Total has expert teams worldwide and financial capacity that allows us to test the most innovative solutions before deploying the most robust ones on a larger scale. We’re blazing a trail and encouraging other stakeholders to become involved, to ensure widespread benefits ".

Awango by Total, a reliable, affordable energy service combining:

Equipment selected for its robustness and ease of use: partnerships with three suppliers — d.Light Design, Greenlight Planet and Sundaya — enable the program to offer a full line of lighting and phone charging products, ranging from portable solar lamps to modular kits.

Affordable price points and financially responsible solutions, such as leasing in the Republic of the Congo and cooperatives in Indonesia.

A one-to two-year warranty for all products, and customer service.

Distribution networks adapted to local conditions. To cover the last mile to the communities concerned, the solutions are being marketed through Total’s service station networks, newly created young reseller networks, agricultural cooperatives, etc.

The strategically related competencies of Total and German development cooperation agency GIZ. Total and GIZ are working in partnership in four key areas: measuring the program’s social impact, educating communities about renewable energies, training the sales force and developing local recycling systems. The results of this cooperation will be shared and published.