In 2014, IDB-Fomin published the results of the impact measurement of Luz en Casa “From candles to light: the impact of the rural electrification” carried out within the Luz en Casa's project LC1700. This study explained that a low percentage of households used the electricity from solar home systems (SHS) for purposes different from lighting, such as charging mobile phone, watch TV or listen to the radio. This situation occurred, partially, due to the difficulty of finding affordable, quality and low consumption SHS-compatible electric devices in the rural communities.

In order to solve that problem, we decide to add a new actor to our management model: the Centros Luz en Casa. Besides offering appliances with which the users could make the most with the electricity provided, these centres could be in charge of attending orders for solar home systems installation and repair under a micro franchisee independent professionals model. Thus, we started the development of the Centro Luz en Casa micro franchises in Cajamarca, in 2015, with the following activities:

• Local entrepreneurs’ identification and technical, managerial & entrepreneurial training.
• Development of a micro franchise business model.
• Demand and market studies. Purchase of initial stock.
• Starting of the first Centros Luz en Casa.
• Opening of a demonstrative centre in our offices in Cajamarca.

All these activities were a part of the “Rural Electrification with Supply and Service Centres” project, which was executed in collaboration with the ICAI Engineers for Development Foundation and the Technical University of Madrid, with cofunding from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (so called AECID), through the I Call for Innovative Projects for Development.