Green energy firm M-KOPA Solar has won the Zayed Future Energy prize, becoming the first company in Sub-Saharan Africa to scoop the award.
Zayed Future Energy is annual award which celebrates achievements that reflect impact, innovation, long term vision and leadership in renewable energy and sustainability, and M-KOPA Solar, which has been advocating for advancing renewable energy and sustainable technologies, was recognised for such efforts.
The Kenyan company was announced the winner at the Abu Dhabi’s Sustainability Week and awarded a Ksh133 million prize at the annual event. The firm is planning to use the funds to launch a training and development programme dubbed M-KOPA University which will provide world class technical and business skills development to partners and employees.
The green-energy company has immensely helped off-grid customers with energy solutions using the ‘pay-as-you-go’ energy services that is a blend of mobile payments with GSM technology to enable the leasing of solar power systems. Customers purchase a home solar system by paying an initial deposit of Ksh3,150 and subsequent 365 daily payments of Ksh40. Once they finish the payments, they become full owners of the system.
“We have brought clean, affordable solar power to 150,000 homes in East Africa in less than three years. We believe that the ‘wireless energy’ revolution is just beginning and that M-KOPA Solar will soon power millions living off the grid,” noted Jesse Moore, Managing Director and Co-Founder of M-KOPA Solar. The university will be housed at the company headquarters in Nairobi and it plans to train over 3,000 staff members and sales agents as well as distribution partners by 2018.
“We’ve proven that our technology can scale and – thanks to great work by our team – we’ve already reached a pace of 500 plus sales per day in East Africa. And yet there is demand for our solution in tens of millions of homes. With the recognition and backing of the Zayed Future Energy Prize, we will continue to develop our exceptional team in order to reach millions of customers as soon as we can,” added Moore.
