Namene Solar Light Company: Replacing Kerosene lights and paraffin candles by solar lights in Namibia

Audit Analysis

A small-scale solar lighting substitution project in Namibia with confirmed additionality and matching claimed/verified ERR figures, but undermined by a 71% drop in the assumed usage rate versus the PDD, a halved crediting period, seven corrective action requests including data-integrity mismatches in household sampling, and the absence of any buffer pool or permanence mechanism. The project delivered roughly 87% of its pro-rata expectation for the elapsed monitoring period, which is acceptable but leaves little margin given the documentation weaknesses.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Usage rate assumed in the monitoring report (1.0) is 71% lower than the value in the PDD (3.5), raising questions about whether the project is delivering the displacement originally designed.
• ⚠Crediting period in the verification report (2022–2026, ~5 years) is half the period stated in the PDD (2021–2036, ~15 years); the basis for this change is not explained in the extracted record.
• ⚠Seven corrective action requests (CARs) include serial-number mismatches for four sampled households and purchase-date inconsistencies between the ER sheet and the monitoring survey, indicating data-integrity weaknesses in the verification sample.
• ⚠Monitoring method is recorded as 'assumed' in the monitoring report, a downgrade from the 'annual survey' method described in the validation report.

Credit Vintages