Quetsol Solar Kit to Light Up Guatemala Hinterland

Guatemala has a considerable size of population below the poverty line. Twenty percent of this Latin American country citizens still have no access to electricity. These families go completely dark in their homes at night; their children are unable to study.  Most of them use kerosene lights and candles to light their homes. But buying these products eats into their monthly earnings and cause health problems like asthma due to inhalation of smoke.A young native entrepreneur, Juan Fermín Rodriguez, and his start-up company, Quetsol, is aiming to light up 520,000 homes in Guatemala with a Pay-As-You-Go model solar panel system.  With this system they can run light bulbs and charge their mobile phones. Quetsol is running a fundraiser campaign in Indiegogo to raise enough money to achieve their goal.According to the company, a family spends around 130 Quetzales per month on an average for candles, and for charging their mobile phones. Adopting this solar set-up will reduce their expense to 90 Quetzales.
Quetsol's solar kit includes a 10W solar panel, a 12 V/15 amp battery, a universal mobile phone charger and two LED light bulbs for the night-time lighting purpose.  The battery can hold 5 hours of light with a full day charging, with a life-long warranty for the kit.  Users can subscribe with their mobile phone payment account. Quetsol Indiegogo campaign expects to collect $50,000. Visit the site to donate.The first step is introducing the product to the customer and educating them about how and why they need it, he added. d.light sells three types of solar lantern equipped with a mobile charger that cater for different levels of need.
Consumer psyche is different in developing countries, Tice said, and companies won't succeed if they try to introduce products in the same way as in wealthier societies."Education and awareness needs to be created, particularly in the developing world where the consumer has been using the same products and services for generations," Tice said. "How a consumer considers a purchase of a new product is fundamentally more cautious - they're not oriented to trial of new product."To solve this issue, d.light puts people on the ground in Africa, Asia and the Americas to teach communities and schools about why solar lighting is important."Remember that the need is a third of the world's population, so scale is relative," Tice said.