A Canadian company, with support from national and state governments, has developed an innovative prepayment technology, 'the Ener-key', for PV systems and for diesel micro-grids. In order to prove the concept's technical and social viability, a pilot project has been initiated in an isolated Indian community in the north of Quebec.

The Kitcisakik of Great Lake Victoria community is an Algonquoan Indian band living in the heart of the La Verandrye Park, north of Montreal. The 500 people band lives in relatively isolation without access to grid electricity.

At their summer camp, most families used to produce their own electricity through individual gasoline generators of 1 to 5 kVA. Each family would fetch its gasoline over water and land, for a distance of 50 kilometres, spending an average of 40 USD/month on the fuel.

In mid-1997, twenty 150 Wp PV systems were installed at the summer ground to meet the electricity demand of 18 families and power the community centre and the water pump. Each system was fitted with an 'EnerKey' prepayment controller in order to facilitate payment of the PV systems by the families. The systems were purchased by the local co-operative formed by a group of Kitcisakik band members.

To get electricity from the PV systems, the user must purchase an electronic 'button'. Pressing the button onto the controller transfers a preset number of units to the controller and electricity is allowed to flow from the PV systems to the load. The controller read the energy being consumed by the load and deducts an equivalent number of units from the button.

Each family made an initial investment of USD 350 for its system. They received a button holding 400 units (one week of electricity, worth USD 7). They are expected to use four of these button per month, bringing an average of USD 28 per system to the co-operative each month. The PV systems will normally operate five months a year bringing in about USD 2 800 each year, enough to pay for two new systems and provide other families with solar electricity. The same prepayment technology will be adopted in the Kitcisakik winter ground later this year, to facilitate payment for power supplied by two diesel generators.

The developers of the technology, Enersite International Inc., expect that the community will be able to generate enough revenue from the sale of the buttons to consolidate the user base and provide a full maintenance program for both winter and summer electric equipment. Furthermore, as the systems were originally financed through a pilot project, this represents a good example of a revolving fund mechanism where the initial 'seed' funds are being continuously reinjected by the users in order to pay for new systems for other users.

Information
For further information, contact

• Jimmy Royer
  Enersite International Inc, Canada
  Fax: +1 418 640 7445

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