Work — File 001
Apolaki
Apolaki started as a simple question: if solar and micro-hydro systems already work technically, why do so few households actually adopt them once the pilot support ends? Most renewable energy programs are measured by installations. This one is measured by what happens twelve months after the installer leaves.
The problem
Technical feasibility was never the hard part. What stalls adoption is upstream of the technology — financing that doesn't match how rural households actually earn, cooperative governance that varies from one barangay to the next, and a policy environment that changes faster than a pilot can adapt to it. None of that shows up in a spec sheet.
Enrolment and retention figures are being collected but are not published here yet. add when the data is clean
The approach
Apolaki pairs the installation with a financing structure negotiated directly with existing local cooperatives, rather than a standalone loan product. The bet is that trust already sits inside those institutions, and adoption follows trust more reliably than it follows price.
It's early. More than one repayment structure is being tried at once, on purpose — the difference in how they hold up is part of what this file is tracking.
Fig. 01 — Standard connection point at the household end.
Financing terms are still negotiated per cooperative — there's no standard package across sites yet, and it isn't clear whether there should be one.
On file
Site visit notes, cooperative agreements, and metering data are kept separately and summarized here as the picture becomes clearer.
Current status
- Running in three barangays across Luzon and Visayas
- Two financing structures being tested in parallel, by design
- Metering and usage data collection ongoing at all sites
Open questions
- Whether either financing model holds without subsidy support after year one
- How to standardize onboarding across cooperatives with different governance norms
- What attrition looks like past month eighteen — not yet observable