Millions of people across Nigeria will have access to modern pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar power home system created by Lumos and deployed across the country with MTN, as a viable alternative to household petrol generators, OGN has learnt.

The nationwide roll out of the system will kick-off today with a formal ceremony in Abuja. Nigeria’s power minister, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Stuart Symington, MTN Nigeria CEO, Mr. Ferdi Moolman will all be hosted at the event by Mr. Davidi Vortman, CEO of Lumos Global.

The MTN Nigeria mobile-enabled solar home system (SHS) will offer off grid electricity customers in Nigeria access to energy as a service.

As a PAYG model, the SHS is enabled by the use of airtime credit and GSM-based machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity which remotely controls and monitors usage, billing and performance.

Nigeria has circa 96 million people living without access to electricity and this represents Africa’s largest off grid electricity market which experts say remains very attractiveness despite general questions about her ease of doing business indicators.

Reportedly, the SHS will come with a large 80W solar panel unit and solar cable, solar control unit with 8 sockets DC 12V max, USB mobile phone adapter, 2 powerful LED bulbs, and easy self-installation mounting kit.

Upon installation, it can be used to power bulbs, fans, computers, and any other electronic gadget within the 12V mark. It will also charge phones and has a five year-warranty.

As a value proposition, Lumos expects that use of the SHS will reduce users’ monthly expenditure on petrol for small generators in salons, homes, and other small users, and provide access to high quality clean electricity.

Also, customers willing to deploy the SHS would be required to enter into a 5-year lease (1,500 days of payment) agreement with Lumos, but with a first pay as commitment fee to subscribe to the service and receive the unit.

They are subsequently allowed the choice to purchase 3, 7 or 30 days’ worth of service at a time in line with the payment structure which is also meant to incentivise larger purchase of bundles by customers with discounts

A customer eventually owns the SHS once the 5-year lease or 1,500 days of payment is completed and the system finally unlocked.