Toyota Tsusho accelerates its mission to promote initiatives to expand renewable energy use in Africa to achieve carbon neutrality. As part of this commitment to carbon neutrality, Toyota Tsusho has invested in OFGENa solar energy solutions company in Kenya.
OFGEN is a solar engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company, as well as providing energy supply for commercial and industrial companies. OFGEN was founded in 2014 in Kenya and has since expanded its presence to Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. In that time, OFGEN has successfully built and financed more than 30+ on-grid and off-grid solar installations with 10+ MWp of solar capacity and 9.3 MWh of battery power in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. Some of these installations contain Tesla power packs. Its energy projects so far are in East Africa, but it wants to expand its activities to Southern Africa.
The Toyota Tsusho Group is actively undertaking infrastructure projects to expand the use of renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal energy in Africa. The Group has installed roof-mounted solar energy systems in offices and facilities in every country it expands into and promotes the use of renewable energy for internal power consumption. CFAO Kenyain partnership with OFGEN has so far installed roof-mounted solar energy systems in four offices in Kenya and two offices in Uganda, and has converted approximately one third of its power consumption into renewable energy.
Based on the “With Africa For Africa” philosophy, the Toyota Tsusho Group aims to grow with the people and communities of Africa, expanding the use of renewable energy to provide a better global environment for the children of the future. With this investment in OFGEN, the Toyota Tsusho Group will further accelerate the Group’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality and contribute to the transition to a low-carbon society.
The commercial and industrial solar energy sector has grown steadily in Kenya since 2014. In the early years, the adoption of solar PV systems by companies was mostly through outright purchase agreements. This slowed down the uptake as large systems of several hundred kW were quite pricey. Several development finance institutions (DFIs) then teamed up with Kenyan banks to offer solar energy loans to companies. The process was quite long and tedious, from lead generation to financial close. This process can take up to 18 months per project.
Later, several solar development companies started offering business PPAs and system leases. Under these facilities, cashless companies can get grid-connected PV systems and pay monthly lease fees for 10 to 20 years, structured in such a way that they would offset their daily usage at rates much cheaper per kWh than the utility rate. The availability of such financing options has contributed to the adoption of these behind-the-meter PV systems as more companies switch to reduce energy costs. The sector has now grown to a total installed capacity of approximately 70 MW. There is still so much room for growth in the sector. According to the Clean Captive Power: Understanding the Uptake and Growth of Commercial and Industrial (C&I) Solar PV in Kenya report, there are an estimated 3,900 corporate consumers who would benefit from solar energy. Currently, fewer than 500 of these customers have adopted PV systems to supplement their energy needs.
As battery storage costs fall, commercial and industrial battery storage systems as part of large microgrids or standalone systems will also become important parts of the energy mix. OFGEN is one of the key players that will drive growth in this industry as well.
All images courtesy of OFGEN
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