Access to sustainable and affordable energy is a requirement to eradicate poverty and create a cycle of market growth. However, products and services are often not customized for the low individual purchasing power of the poor today and thus leave attractive market potentials untapped. To leverage this opportunity, corporations need to start considering the poor as customers of the future and develop technologies and business models which fit the local conditions. Microgrids are at the technological core of this development and are already commercially deployed in the developed world, as grid-connected systems. This paper looks into how microgrid technologies, primarily off-grid systems, can be deployed into the developing world and investigates the opportunities and challenges corporations may face when entering the market for microgrids in Southeast Asia.
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