2024 Off-Grid Energy Social Impact Awards

2024 Off-Grid Energy Social Impact Awards

We’re excited to celebrate the Top Impact Award winners of the 60 Decibels 2024 Energy Impact Index – a customer-centric compilation of data based on the voices and experiences of over 79,000 individuals.

Out of the 140+ energy organizations surveyed in 30+ different countries, these energy organizations ranked top across 3 areas in the Index: Impact, Customer Experience, and Access.

Off-grid energy solutions are the most efficient way to provide energy to those lacking access to electricity, and these organizations have demonstrated exceptional performance in delivering these services and making a positive impact on the lives of customers.

2024 Off-Grid Energy Social Impact Awards runners-up

We’d like to give a special mention to the companies that came 2nd and 3rd in the Index for their categories:

• Solar Lantern: SunnyMoney (SolarAid) in Malawi and Agriput Solar in Zimbabwe. 
• Solar Home System: SUKi Africa in Nigeria and RECAPO Solar Systems in Malawi.
• Mini-Grid: PowerGen in Sierra Leone and Powerhive in Kenya. 
• Appliance: SunCulture in Kenya (SWP) and Khethworks in India (SWP).
• Clean Cooking: Grean World in Ethiopia and Sistema.bio in Kenya.
• Consumer Protection: VITALITE in Malawi and ElleSolaire in Senegal

Social Impact Awards Selection Criteria

The Awards are based on our Energy Impact Index, which looks at three areas:

Impact – how transformative or meaningful are the energy products or services for families? We use our Quality of Life indicator here – looking at the % of company customers who said their new energy access had ‘very much improved’ their and their families’ lives.

Customer experience – how do customers feel about their interactions with the company and the broader service they provide? We used four of our indicators here:

• Ease of use (Customer Challenge Rate inverted)
• Issue Resolution
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Access – how successful are companies at reaching previously unserved populations? Here we use three of our indicators: First Access, No Access to Alternatives, and the Inclusivity Rate (IR).

For those who’d like to geek out, here’s how we calculated the Index Scores. 

Index Score = average of Impact + Customer Experience + Access Scores. And each of the area scores were calculated by averaging the results of the indicators within that theme. We only included projects where we had at least five of eight of the indicators results. For projects with any missing values, we input the sub-sector average as a neutral proxy. 

For the three indicators in the Index that are not on a 0-100% scale (CES, NPS, and IIR) we normalised the results by converting them to a 0-100% scale. The result is a % score for each indicator in the Index, averaged to give an overall Index score, where the higher the number, the better. The maximum Index Score was 74% and the bottom was 36% – so there was quite a range.

Once we’d done all that, we then ranked the Index Scores to find the top performers.

60 Decibels Why Off-Grid Energy Matters 2024

The Energy Social Impact Awards feature as part of our latest report on our work in the sector – Why Off-Grid Energy Matters 2024. Explore the full report here.