Bboxx: Scaling LPG Access Across Africa and Beyond
Bboxx is a data-driven platform that provides innovative technologies and financing for energy access for millions of people across Africa. Through a range of clean energy products, Bboxx is catalyzing economic development and making progress on the Global Goals.
CCA spoke with Louis De Muylder, Head of Bboxx Cook, the clean cooking product line of Bboxx, about the organization’s progression as a clean cooking company, flagship products and technologies, and successes in scaling clean cooking gas across Africa and beyond.
This interview is part of a series of conversations CCA is having with business leaders across the clean cooking sector.
Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA): Can you tell us about Bboxx’s origins and entry into the clean cooking industry?
Louis De Muylder (De Muylder): Bboxx is dedicated to providing essential products and services in the African market. At our inception in 2010, we focused on our solar home system, which provides electricity access to off-grid households. We started receiving feedback from our customers that, in addition to electricity, they wanted something better to cook with. In 2019, we started researching cooking fuels in African markets and learned about fuel availability, peoples’ cooking preferences, and potential for scalability. After deep industry analysis, we found that liquified petroleum gas (LPG) was the most available and scalable fuel in Africa. In 2020, Bboxx launched its first LPG cooking program, implemented through various partnerships in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Kenya. In 2023, we launched our new device, the smart cooking valve, and have expanded into other markets.
CCA: Tell us more about why Bboxx chose to focus on LPG as a clean cooking fuel.
De Muylder: Bboxx is not specifically an LPG company; at the beginning, we were fuel agnostic. We tried a biodigester pilot program but weren’t able to scale it. LPG is a major commodity available worldwide, traded in massive volumes, and with lots of existing infrastructure. Refilling stations for cylinders exist in almost every region in Africa, especially cities. But last-mile distribution and financing were missing, so that’s what we wanted to focus on. As a clean cooking fuel, LPG has several important benefits compared to traditional cooking methods, like decreasing carbon dioxide emissions, harmful fumes, and deforestation. We saw great potential to make an impact in the industry, as well as for people and the environment.
CCA: What are the defining characteristics of Bboxx’s clean cooking customer base?
De Muylder: Our customers’ household income is below US $500 per month, with most customers below $250 and some earning only $30-$100. Most customers receive an incremental income on a daily basis rather than a large amount biweekly or monthly. That’s why we wanted to adopt a business model that customers can afford on a frequent payment schedule.
CCA: What led to the creation of Bboxx’s smart cooking valve, and how does it work?
De Muylder: Most of our customers cannot afford to refill an entire 12 kilogram (kg) cylinder, which could cost $20 upfront. Selling LPG in small cylinders, like a 6kg cylinder, is affordable for customers because the upfront cost is less, but since the stove only comes with one burner, many customers continue to cook with charcoal at the same time. Small cylinders are not very profitable for the industry because distribution is more costly. Meanwhile, charcoal is sold in affordable daily quantities on every street corner. We wanted to find a way to break down the costs for a household on a daily basis, which is where our smart meter idea came from 4-5 years ago. Daily payments make LPG affordable at a price that is competitive with the price of a daily charcoal sachet.
Eventually, we realized that monitoring a customer’s exact daily use doesn’t matter. So, in 2022, we designed our smart cooking valve. It looks like a smart meter, but instead of measuring gas consumption, it simply has the ability to switch the gas on and off. This enables LPG canisters to become a pay-as-you-go solution. We sell customers a full gas cylinder, typically 12kg, and they sign a contract to pay back the value within 30 days. If the customer pays on time, the valve remains open, and if they do not pay on time, it closes. After 3 years of learning, we finalized its design in-house 1.5 years ago and publicly released it on the market in August 2023 in Rwanda and DRC. This year, we’re focusing on business development and working hand in hand with established LPG marketers to scale the technology across different geographies.
CCA: How do you track customers’ payments and manage the smart valve?
De Muylder: We developed a customer relationship management and financing platform called Pulse to connect Bboxx with our customers. Pulse manages mobile money payments from our customers and builds their portfolio, giving each customer a credit score based on their payment history. The platform sends automatic text message reminders and warnings for customers to pay on time. Pulse is integrated with a call center, so if a customer has not paid and their gas becomes switched off, they will automatically receive a call from the call center to resolve it. Pulse also has a mobile application, so Bboxx agents can interact with customers in case of any issues.
We developed the platform seven years ago and released a new version last year. We built Pulse ourselves because we couldn’t find a service like it that was tailor-made for our industry, making it a big part of Bboxx’s value proposition. It’s a core piece of our marketing intelligence too, since we can collect data about our customers’ geography, payment, cooking habits, and more.
Can you tell us more about your activities in East Africa?
De Muylder: In Goma, DRC, 95% of the population cooked with charcoal, which largely came from Virunga National Park and was linked to armed conflict. The LPG market was nascent in DRC, so we did everything by ourselves, from providing cylinders to issuing refills. With the support of USAID, we became the LPG market leaders in 1.5 years by reaching 25,000 customers, offering financing on stoves and cylinders. The project was a big success, and we are now sustainably serving our customers.
Our latest project is focused on Rwanda and combines a subsidy from the World Bank and the Government of Rwanda. Our partners subsidize the tools for customers to cook – a cylinder, stove, regulator, and pipe – which reduces the commercial price by about $40 per sale. The subsidy has been game changing to make the technology more affordable for the customer.
In Rwanda, we only had 3,000 Bboxx-branded cylinders. We reached out to local LPG marketers like SP and Total Energies and began selling their cylinders, too, since we’re happy to work with partners when they can do the job better than us. Now, we’re acquiring 2,500 customers per month. Since October, we’ve found many customers with cylinders from different brands who want to use Bboxx’s smart valve and pay-as-you-go service. This is the beauty of our solution: we can deploy the combination of our Pulse software and our smart valve hardware in any market and on any cylinders. Our objective is to allow everyone to cook without smoke, without dirt, without wasting time, and without contributing to deforestation. We have projects in the pipeline to replicate this model in Pakistan and in new markets across Africa, with different LPG marketers.
CCA: Tell us more about your project in Pakistan.
De Muylder: Bboxx will be working in Pakistan to push for LPG market penetration in specific regions of the country. A local partner will supply the cylinders and Bboxx will deploy 50,000 smart valves, supply our Pulse platform, and manage the retail and refills of gas. Carbon credits will finance the technology and smart valves. Customers will be able to choose if they want to pay for a cylinder upfront or on a pay-as-you-go schedule. As the upfront cost of gas is cheaper in Pakistan, more people may be able to pay upfront. In that case, we would give them a regulator instead of a smart valve so that we can still track gas consumption. This allows us to be eligible for carbon financing by giving verifiable information for carbon credit reporting, as every refill is recorded in Pulse.
CCA: How do you see your business, and the clean cooking sector more broadly, developing over the next 5-10 years?
De Muylder: Bboxx’s vision for clean cooking is scaling LPG in Africa as a transition fuel from charcoal to the next fully green fuel. Hopefully, in 20 years there will be a sustainable substitute for LPG. Once proven and cheap, it can replace LPG and scale using the same infrastructure. With it, our vision may change.
The future of the market should be moving away from fossil fuels. I think we’ll see a rise in e-cooking along with expanding the electrical grid, which hopefully will become green and affordable, but it depends on each country and region. Today, the grid is not growing fast enough to match the problem. Although other parts of the world are getting rid of gas, Africa will likely rely on LPG for the next decade or two before replacing it with a sustainable and more affordable substitute. While LPG is everywhere, we must unlock access to everyone, which Bboxx is working towards. It is a social and environmental emergency.
CCA: Do you have any advice for other companies developing clean cooking technologies and business models about getting to scale?
De Muylder: Focus on the customer experience first, as it must be super convenient, and then leverage existing retail infrastructure. Ultimately, it has to be financially interesting for the customer.
