Africa’s strong economic performance over the past ten years, as well as its projected economic growth, mean ever-increasing energy demands across the continent. Unfortunately, power supply has not kept pace. It has become imperative to take definite steps to end energy insecurity and to set Africa on a sustainable energy path. Given its abundant natural resources and the many innovative environment-related financing instruments available, Africa has the opportunity to grow under a low-carbon, clean energy path that not only bridges its energy gap, but also attracts significant private investment in the energy sector in support of strong growth, job creation, and poverty reduction on the continent. Here is a list of 10 VC4Africa entrepreneurs disrupting the African energy business and as ranked by the VC4Africa community.
1) Nigeria’s First Eco Friendly City (Nigeria) – VerySol GmbH is a manufacturer of Solar Street Lights and integrator of Solar Power Systems. They have initial contacts in Nigeria.
2) Uncontained Living (South Africa) – Uncontained Living conceptualizes, designs and sells eco-friendly housing solutions, primarily in South Africa.
3) Africa biomass and off-grid energy (South Africa) – A South African company in the business of converting biomass waste and weeds into a high calorific charcoal and bio-oil.
4) The Green City (Kenya) – Green City is about developing a Human waste recycling plant to generate affordable fuel, fertilizers and manure.
5) Enerlogy-SOLAR (South Africa) – They are working to establish a Photovoltaic (PV) farm to generate power via PV/Solar panels. They are signing a takeoff agreement with the national utility ESKOM.
6) AfricanBrains (Zambia) – AfricanBrains is devoted to the promotion of innovation and attracting investment into new technologies. They host an online networking community.
7) ProWAM – Jatropha to Biodiesel (Togo) – They seek to process jatropha seeds locally into biodiesel, harvesting wind and solar energy at the same time. They are also looking at mobile installations.
8) Angaza Design (Tanzania) – Angaza Design is a for-profit social business dedicated to making clean and affordable electricity accessible to all off-grid families and businesses in the developing world.
9) African Alternative Energy Solutions (Uganda) – AAES uses a vehicle’s generating capability to generate and store free electricity for later use.
10) Renewable Waste (South Africa) – Clean Globe will be vertically integrated, and use almost all of its recycled material in its renewable division. All surplus/non-recyclable materials produced will be used for waste-to-energy (WTE) at a later stage.