SELCO Foundation has been working towards enabling socio-economic growth in the rural livelihoods sectors by using renewable energy alternatives and developing decentralized renewable energy integrated energy efficient machinery in the technological front. A holistic ecosystem approach towards implementation of said technology involves appropriate financial linkages, studying input and output flows to enable market linkages, and enabling training and upskilling facilities for the end-users to ensure self-sustainability.

The ecosystem required for the poor to own and run livelihood assets consists of highly efficient appliances, stable market linkages and affordable financing. The biggest challenge of the three is the ability for poor families to avail financing that matches their cash flows, resulting from the sustainable energy-driven intervention. Innovations in financing livelihood assets will open a whole new world of DRE related interventions for the poor across the globe. Cash flows and links to markets differ for all types of end users, and thus, need different forms and instruments of financing. The complexity of financial products is as much as with technology innovations, if not more.

The aim of the study is to create a financial framework, placing end users on a spectrum to understand how financial models and types of financial support instruments are required for each typology of end user. Based on these recommendations, the solutions implemented can reach scale keeping in line with SELCO’s unique approach.