Our Projects

Arc is testing, piloting and expanding a number of business models that are focused on financing for sustainable energy including microfinance, remittances, asset finance, crowd-funding and pay as you go mechanisms. The end goal of REMMP is to increase access to finance for end users of clean energy services so as to improve livelihoods and quality of life among these target recipients.
For details on the REMMP project, click here.

Arc is implementing the Microfinance Support Program (MSP) under The Partnership to Advance Clean Energy – Deployment Technical Assistance (PACE-D TA) Program, a five- year bilateral program with the objective to accelerate India’s transition to a high performing, low emission, and energy secure economy.
For details on the PACE-D project, click here.

With support from the Citibank Foundation, Arc published and disseminated in-depth research on innovative affordability mechanisms for off-grid, clean energy. The projected documented how these financial products – including lending, savings, remittances and leasing products – have dramatically improved the livelihoods of poor people around the world.
For details on this project, click here.

Arc explored community- or private-sector-based financing for WASH systems to improve the sustainable management of potable water in project-assisted communities. In collaboration with Roshan, the leading mobile phone operator in Afghanistan, Arc Finance also led the development of Mobile SWSS, a monitoring and evaluation tool that will enable SWSS staff to better track the performance of water supply hardware over time.

Arc tested an innovative and untraditional remittance transfer model identified during market research conducted by Arc in 2009 as being attractive to both remitters and receivers. The goal of the project was to radically increase the availability and number of sustainable energy products for Haitian consumers, using remittances as the financing source.

Arc conducted market research for a project, led by Gaia Consulting Oy, designed to test remittances as a means to finance energy efficiency products and technologies in Bolivia. The overall goal of the project was to reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions, improve resilience of low-income households to climate impacts on the energy sector, to reduce the cost for energy in urban and rural low-income households, and to raise awareness about cleaner and less energy intensive energy sources.

Arc is supporting Winrock International on its USAID-funded Developing a Sustainable Cookstove Sector program in Kenya. Arc is supporting Micro Enterprises Support Program Trust (MESPT), a microfinance institution that is a partner under the program, to develop new financial products for customers and distributers of efficient stoves. The overall goal of the project is to strengthen the cookstove sector in Kenya.

In partnership with the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE), Arc implemented a project funded by the World Bank/IFC to increase access to clean rural electrification in Latin America. Arc analyzed the business models of three Latin American organizations active in the energy sector (Emprenda in Peru and Argentina, Ecami in Nicaragua, and IDEAAS in Brazil) with the goal of improving the existing business models through introducing additional products and services, promoting alliances with financial institutions, and suggesting new financing mechanisms such as carbon finance, thereby facilitating expansion and replication.