Help us help rural electricians make an income providing cheap, reliable, and clean electricity for their villages
Why Electricity?
It's hard for us to imagine a life without electricity, but roughly two-thirds of Myanmar's population live without access to the national grid. For them, a lack of electricity means
- 10% of their income gets spent on basic lighting from candles and kerosene
- 1,000 productive hours lost each year
- Up to 50% loss of revenue from under-processed crops
How are people dealing with this problem?
Electricity provision is challenging, expensive, and requires true commitment and dedication to manage properly. Yet, in the face of these challenges, over 13,000 villages in Myanmar have built systems almost entirely on their own. With their own savings, rural electricians ("meesayar") got to work and installed diesel generators, distribution lines, and connections to the households in their villages. The mini-grids, community-level electricity systems that locally generate and distribute energy, are estimated to serve 12% of Myanmar's off-grid population.
Some of the meesayar we are working with near Myeik in Southeastern Myanmar.
That's awesome! How can we help them?
Everything the meesayar know was learnt the hard way - through hands on practice and trial and error. Despite their incredible work, they face some challenges. 100+ personal interviews with meesayar and the households they serve have shown us that communities are motivated to improve these systems (understanding that the government is unable to help them); they just need two things: the money and skills to upgrade the mini-grid.
Our founder, Natasha, has been learning from meesayar like Ko Aung Win Moe since the spring of 2017, and working with them to develop Mee Panyar's model.
Our team of engineers, project financiers, market analysts, and educators listened to the meesayars’ concerns, strengths, and aspirations and designed a unique business model that addresses their need for training and investment capital.
So what exactly will Mee Panyar do on the ground?
We want to use these existing mini-grids as the foundation to bring cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable energy to these villages. We will teach the meesayar how to hybridise the existing mini-grids with solar and how to make sure the system can provide reliable electricity using proper operation and maintenance practices. This is all done through a hands-on training program that we will run in the village so that the meesayar can continue to learn how they learn best - with their hands.
How will our work help off-grid communities?
Our program can decrease household electricity prices by up to 50%, increase operator profit 3x, and reduce annual carbon emissions by 60%.
Cheaper electricity for the village means that it can be used for more activities that can generate income, like mechanising agricultural processing practice, such as rubber rolling. A simple intervention like this can lead to a 25% increase in daily revenue.
How will Mee Panyar's work scale to more villages?
To start, we are trying this out with one village in the southeast of Myanmar, but that is just the beginning. To help us reach more of the 13000 existing mini-grids, we take a share of the revenue for each system we develop and reinvest that in another village. Also our focus on capacity building means that meesayar we train can go on to help us train new meesayar, meaning more villages with more electricity and more jobs.
As the world works to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, just under 1 billion people will need to gain access to electricity systems. We see this incredible practice of self-help electrification in Myanmar as an opportunity to show how unelectrified communities everywhere can be active agents in their energy systems. This not only means local job creation, but also more sustainable systems that can be properly cared for by the communities who use them.
This sounds great - what can I do?
Help us realize this vision by supporting our first project in Myanmar and join us on our journey to prove that excellence doesn't need to be brought in, but already exists in rural communities.
In addition to a cornerstone investment of $2,500, UK aid will match your contribution (up to a total of $10,000 for the campaign), making your contribution count 2x!
From our team, our partners, and the communities we are working with, thank you for your support and belief in our vision. We hope that, together, we can ensure that future energy use is clean, sustainable, and inclusive by putting the power in the hands of those who can really make the most of it.
For more updates and information (including photos, blog posts, and stories), please subscribe to our newsletter at our website, www.meepanyar.com.
If you have any questions or comments to share, please email us at natasha@meepanyar.com!