How Africa’s Biggest Mini-Grid Owner is Creating Economic Growth by Providing Electricity to Rural Communities with William Brent

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. Been working for the past six, seven years, pretty much exclusively focused on rural electrification in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Essentially the idea of Husk is built around something called a mini-grid.

[00:00:17] It's similar to a national grid. It's a generation asset, so in our case it's solar and batteries. These are communities that have lived without electricity for decades. Because of the failure of the grid, they've often turned to diesel generation.

[00:00:31] Not everybody in these communities has a lot of resources, so you have to come up with business models and approaches that are suitable for them. Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential.

[00:00:48] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast with your host Terser Adamu. Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast where we find amazing people who are doing amazing things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today we have William Brent, who is Chief Marketing Officer at Husk Power Systems,

[00:01:12] which is a company that provides reliable power to rural communities and businesses entirely from renewable energy sources. Welcome, welcome to the podcast. William, how are you? I'm doing great Terser. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to our conversation.

[00:01:31] Me too. I know you've listened to the podcast before, so I'd like to start from the beginning. I was hoping you could introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about William Brent.

[00:01:43] Happy to. I am American. I grew up in Washington, DC, and I originally was an entrepreneur. Before that, I was a journalist and an editor. I spent many years in China. For the past 20 years or so, I've been focused pretty much entirely on renewable energy, clean technology,

[00:02:01] or what people call clean tech, sort of part of the original boom in the early 2000s around the clean tech space. I've been working for the past six, seven years pretty much exclusively focused on rural electrification in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

[00:02:20] Originally with an NGO that I helped found and ran called Power for All and more recently in the past two years with a company called Husk Power. So that's a short introduction. Thank you for that. You've given us a nice, concise introduction to who you are.

[00:02:37] Entrepreneur, journalist now entirely focused on renewable energy, which has led you to the work that you're doing now at Husk Power Systems. So I was wondering if you can give us a bit more information regarding Husk Power Systems

[00:02:53] and the work that you're actually doing to contributing to providing power to rural communities specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. Happy to do that. So Husk started actually 15 years ago this month. It was co-founded by our current CEO, Manoj Sinha, who's from India.

[00:03:12] So it was started in India in his home state of Bihar where he saw firsthand what the lack of electricity access meant to rural communities there.

[00:03:20] He and his partners at that time started Husk to try and address the failure of the national grid to electrify remote rural towns and villages.

[00:03:32] So that was the origin of Husk. It was a social venture, I would say focused on trying to bring people out of energy poverty. And that's always been the mission and remains the mission.

[00:03:43] And Manoj always wanted to do that work in India, but he wanted to create a solution that could be taken everywhere because he knew that this is also an issue in other emerging markets, developing economies in sub-Saharan Africa in particular.

[00:03:57] And so essentially the idea of Husk is built around something called a mini-grid. It's similar to a national grid. It's the same idea. It's a generation asset. So in our case it's solar and batteries.

[00:04:12] And then it's also the transmission and distribution of that electricity that's generated by the solar to, in this case, local communities. So it's a localized grid that serves towns, villages and rural settings.

[00:04:24] And it's evolved as a business beyond just the mini-grid, but that's sort of still the core of our business. And we have, I think we're the first country to... Sorry, country. Maybe we'll be a country like that. The first company to exceed 200 mini-grids across those two continents.

[00:04:43] We think that's the largest fleet of mini-grids in the world. And we've made a commitment publicly to build at least 5,000 mini-grids by 2030 in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

[00:04:54] Fantastic. So you've detailed there. The origins of Husk was driven by the lack of power in rural India and also the advantages of power specifically from mini-grids.

[00:05:05] What would you say are the advantages of using mini-grids compared to some of the more traditional centralized grids for electrifying rural communities? Yes. Mini-grids only exist because of the failure of national grids.

[00:05:21] And the reason that mini-grids are more advantageous is that they're faster to deploy, they're less costly to deploy because they're private sector led. They tend to have much more reliable and higher quality electricity.

[00:05:36] And I think even most probably most important is the fact that they can deliver better service to the customer. You know, these are communities that have lived without electricity for decades because of the failure of the grid.

[00:05:47] They've often turned to diesel generation as a stopgap measure to provide electricity that's very polluting. It's very expensive. And so mini-grids are, you know, have all of those advantages plus others that we can get into.

[00:06:00] But I think those are the most important. It's fast, the most cost effective, higher reliability and quality of service and just better service overall.

[00:06:08] Fantastic. So you touched on some of the key areas there in terms of the cost sustainability environmentally kind of friendly to an extent in terms of how you deploy them, in terms of the distributed renewable energy sources.

[00:06:25] So how would you say this impacts the achievements of some of these sustainable development goals in the regions where HUSC operates? So maybe I can just talk a little bit about Africa, sub-saharan Africa specifically, because that is the region where we operate as well as India.

[00:06:40] You know, there are still about 595 million Africans who are expected to be without electricity by 2030 at our current rate of addressing the sustainable development goals. That's a huge, you know, essentially we're globally, I think the official numbers are 675 million total people without electricity.

[00:06:58] There's many more with unreliable electricity in the billions, but unelectrified is almost 700 million. Most of those are in sub-saharan Africa and you know, mini grids, the World Bank has said that mini grids should be able to power 380 million people in Africa by 2030.

[00:07:14] And that requires us to build a HUSC and other companies like HUSC to build more than 160,000 mini grids. That'll cost a lot of money, $91 billion.

[00:07:25] And we're not even close to achieving that pace. But anyway, I think just as background, it's important to sort of know this is the scope of the issue.

[00:07:32] It's a big problem and needs a lot of focus to come together from different players to achieve the potential of the mini grid industry. Why is it important? It's not just important. And this gets back to your original question around the SDGs, sustainable development goals.

[00:07:45] It's not just important to deliver electricity. You can't just plop a mini grid down in a rural community and expect people to start using energy. You need to come at the issue with a holistic view. And that holistic view touches on all of the SDGs.

[00:08:02] I think the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that energy is the golden thread that ties all of the SDGs together because unless you have access to reliable quality, affordable modern electricity, which is what SDG 7 is focused on,

[00:08:18] you can't achieve better healthcare outcomes. You can't reduce food insecurity. You can't improve educational outcomes for young people living in these communities.

[00:08:29] You can't provide clean drinking water, etc., etc., etc. So all of those things are within the 17 sustainable development goals and it all starts with electricity or energy. And so that's the entry point to really be able to help communities achieve their full potential and join the modern economy.

[00:08:50] But that's not enough to just provide electricity. You have to sort of look at it holistically and for the reasons I stated, which is that energy isn't an abler for so many of the SDGs unless you can come at it from that perspective or less you do come at it from that perspective, you're leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.

[00:09:07] I agree. So you've given some specific stats of the scope of the issues and the importance of energy as an enabler. So the importance is clear, but what are some of the challenges that you've seen in terms of accelerating the adoption of mini-grids?

[00:09:23] Yeah, in Sub-Saharan Africa? Yeah, sure. I think it's probably the same anywhere, but it's certainly the case in Sub-Saharan Africa.

[00:09:30] Two main things. One is policy and regulation. There has to be a strong and conducive environment, policy and regulatory environment to allow for private sector mini-grids to come in and do what they're capable of doing.

[00:09:47] And you're still seeing a lot of legacy of thinking within the funders of governments, within governments or agencies within governments that sort of stuck in this outmoded way of thinking that centralized grids are the end-all, be-all.

[00:10:02] There's not room for more integrated systems, but the whole trend globally right now in the energy sector is precisely towards more integrated systems that combine the best of centralized systems, the best of decentralized systems and bring them together.

[00:10:16] So there's policy and regulatory frameworks within that. There's also specifically how do you use policy and regulatory frameworks to bring these different types of systems together in a collaborative way?

[00:10:28] So that's what I would say the main issue, one main issue. The other is investment and it's not just for us. I think there's a general lack of investment in Sub-Saharan Africa despite promises made around climate solutions, including mini-grids.

[00:10:43] It's a struggle for the industry. We're pretty nascent industry. I mean we've only been around for 15 years. We were the pioneers. So this is a 15-year-old industry.

[00:10:52] We need support, much more support in terms of achieving the potential billions of dollars and we are as an industry struggling to find equity, affordable equity and debt to help us scale.

[00:11:05] So those two things, policy and regulatory frameworks and investment that includes grants, blended finance, grants, debt, equity, all of it, concessional finance, et cetera.

[00:11:17] Thank you for sharing that. So from what you've mentioned in terms of policy and investment, I'd say collaboration is vital for overcoming these challenges to ensure inclusive energy access.

[00:11:29] Can you share some examples of say successful collaborations, how power systems has kind of undertaken to improve energy access in rural communities? You know, as I mentioned, you know, because energy is tied to all of the entire development agenda, whether it's transportation, food, water, you name it.

[00:11:51] That by definition requires us to be very good at partnering because we can't do everything ourselves. We're quite capable as a company.

[00:12:01] We achieve profitability end of last year. We're scaling. We have a viable business model, but we can't necessarily do e-mobility, cold chain, agro processing, appliance sales and finance all by ourselves, right? So those are some areas where we have had successful collaborations.

[00:12:18] So e-mobility, for example, we were working with an electric motorcycle manufacturer to start to introduce motorcycle leasing and battery swapping in the communities that we're working.

[00:12:31] Couldn't do that on our own. We don't make motorcycles. And so we have to work closely with the manufacturers and others in the supply chain to do that.

[00:12:38] So we've got a cold chain project that we're working on with a partner from the agricultural service side to start to introduce cold chain into the communities that we serve so that the shelf life of the produce being harvested by these communities because they're largely agricultural can have a longer shelf life and get to market

[00:12:58] and help them increase their income. Same with agro processing, working with agro processing partners to set up processing hubs that allow for us to aggregate the output, the production from these farmer collectors at value through that processing package and sell the market, essentially also helping them increase their income.

[00:13:21] You know, we also partner with big appliance manufacturers like Samsung where they are supplying us with energy efficient appliances, whether it's TVs, fans, etc., that we can then sell on to our customers with financing.

[00:13:36] But we're still looking for new partners on the finance piece for appliances, for example.

[00:13:42] We're eager right now. We're financing the sales of those appliances off of our balance sheet and we're looking for partners who can come in and help us do that and take that off of our balance sheet and bring it into their operations.

[00:13:54] So there's a lot we're already doing. There's a lot more that we need to do. Fantastic. So it's clear that you're doing great work in these communities. We know that these rural communities tend to be low income areas.

[00:14:06] So how do you go about maintaining a balance between, say, offering low cost energy and also ensuring the long term sustainability of your operations? That's a great question. I think ultimately it comes down to focusing on cost reductions of our systems and the operations of our system.

[00:14:25] So both the system itself, the mini-grid, the physical infrastructure, but also how we operate them and maintain them over time.

[00:14:32] And so that's been a real focus for the company continues to be a focus for the company. Only if we're driving our costs down will we be sustainable as a business?

[00:14:41] And then also by doing so, we'll be able to lower our costs and pass those cost savings on to our customers. So that's a recipe for sustainability. Of course, it requires a viable business model, which we've also proven that we have.

[00:14:57] We wouldn't have gotten to profitability if we didn't have a viable business model. So all of those things, I think the focus on business model, the focus on cost reduction are critical.

[00:15:07] The last piece is probably around demand generation and working in the communities that we serve to figure out how do you best help the communities achieve greater economic activity so that the demand for our energy increases while also improving their livelihoods.

[00:15:25] So that's also a recipe for sustainability. If we're able to improve lives, by doing so, we also improve our business. So all of those things are connected, the cost, the business model and the demand.

[00:15:38] You can solve all of those three things, then you have a recipe for sustainability long term. Fantastic. So if we look closer at your operations or the services you offer the communities, I know you offer a Pays You Go energy service. Yeah, that's right.

[00:15:54] So I was wondering how did you identify there was a need for such a service and what impact do you believe it has had on the lives of the customers that you serve?

[00:16:05] So these are, we're working in communities that are poor. I mean not everybody in these communities has a lot of resources, whether it's monetary or otherwise. And so you have to come up with business models and approaches that are suitable for them.

[00:16:21] And that's really, I think where we, as I said earlier, we differ from national grids is that we're very customer centric in terms of how we think about our business.

[00:16:31] And so Pays You Go just makes sense, right? If you're at the bottom of the pyramid customer or a smallholder farmer or whatever it might be, you know, you need a system that best suits you.

[00:16:43] And so there's seasonal income for many of these potential customers, right? So they're harvesting season, they might have more income seasons where there's not activity on the agriculture side, they might have less.

[00:16:55] And Pays You Go gives them the flexibility to come in and out of our mini grid as suits them, right? It's different from solar home systems, which has really evolved over the past decade, where those companies like Delight and others are selling directly to households and to businesses,

[00:17:13] but individual households and individualism. We come at it from a community perspective. And because we have a community view and approach to our business, no one individual household or business is indebted to pay off a solar home system over time, right?

[00:17:30] They can get a connection to our mini grid. If they can pay for that month ahead of time and use the services, great. They're of course welcome to do that if they can't for whatever reason, then they don't have to.

[00:17:42] And we just turn the switch and they don't have electricity for that month. So it reduces the burden on the customer. It also gives them the ability to really, you know, use electricity as they need it as opposed to requiring them to pay a monthly fee payment to pay off

[00:17:59] a solar rooftop system over time. As you mentioned, you are customer and community centric and your services are targeted at low income rural areas. So how would you go about actually identifying suitable areas for deploying mini grids?

[00:18:17] This is a really interesting question because, you know, as I said, we are a for profit business. We need a viable business model. Yes.

[00:18:24] In order to sort of figure out what that viable business model is, we over trial and error over the past 15 years, we've figured out, okay, this is the profile of a community that best suits our business model.

[00:18:35] And we have a scorecard for determining whether the community is suitable for that algorithm that we've created for the scorecard. That's a very specific type of community, community size, amount of economic activity, you know, proximity to transportation, etc. etc.

[00:18:51] There are all these things that go into that scorecard. And so we have a very high level of confidence before we build any infrastructure in a community that by using that scorecard that we're going to be a viable over time, right?

[00:19:03] Because we're operating these mini grids for 20 to 25 years. We need to have confidence that we're going to not get ourselves into a situation where we don't have a viable business. So, but that's a very distinctive profile of community.

[00:19:16] I think what is exciting for me is that as we drive our costs further down, as we evolve the technology that underpins our whole business, those costs will come down enough that I hope we can then work our way down the pyramid to start providing these types of energy services

[00:19:35] to less wealthy communities, communities that have less economic activity and really start to bring harder to reach areas into the modern energy economy.

[00:19:45] So I think we have a clearly defined path to identifying communities, but we want to evolve that and be able to get to even harder to reach communities. Fantastic. As you mentioned, it's not just about providing power.

[00:19:58] It's also about enabling economic activity in the community and I guess job creation is part of that.

[00:20:04] So I was wondering, I know we've had conversations in the past in terms of how do you work with local partners and people in the communities to manage or provide, say, technical assistance for the mini grid projects within those communities?

[00:20:19] So the communities are oftentimes off grid and have never had electricity.

[00:20:25] So there's a lot of education required on our side to help them understand how much energy they should be using, what's the right package for them on a monthly basis so that they can still maintain their lifestyle while also benefiting from energy.

[00:20:41] We always hire when we go into a country, we always hire 100% local staff. That's the case in Nigeria where we're about maybe 100 people now and that also includes going into the communities that we serve. We also hire local technicians, local salespeople.

[00:20:56] So we're contributing directly to job creation in the communities that were present in.

[00:21:02] We also have a lot of other activities that we think are benefiting the communities, not we think we actually know in some cases that are benefiting the communities economically in terms of job creation and business expansion and growth. Right?

[00:21:21] So for example, many of the micro small and medium sized enterprises that are customers of ours, MSMEs they're called. You know, they've been traditionally using diesel generation, right? That's ubiquitous across Nigeria and many other rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diesel is very expensive. It's highly polluting.

[00:21:40] It's really noisy. It's no fun if you've been to these rural communities. It's no fun to be anywhere near diesel generator. And there are dozens of diesel generators in each of the communities that we go into.

[00:21:51] And so we're displacing, we're able to displace those generators overnight pretty much because the businesses that are using them have an immediate cost savings of maybe let's say around 30% on their monthly energy bill. That 30% is significant. It can be reinvested in the business.

[00:22:08] It could be used to expand and hire new people. So that's just one specific example. But I'm sure there are many others that we could get into if we had more time. Fantastic.

[00:22:18] So you're giving examples of how Husks renewable energy solutions have positively impacted businesses in rural areas. So if we take a few steps back to a point you mentioned earlier regarding the policy and regulatory framework, if we look specifically in say Nigeria,

[00:22:37] how does this policy and regulatory framework enable or hinder the expansion of your mini grids within the country? Nigeria is the perfect country to use an example here because they have by far and away the best mini good policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Okay. Yeah.

[00:22:55] They've done a tremendous job in really creating an environment to incentivize private companies like Husk. There's many others. There's GVE. There's Haven Hill. There's who are all sort of have come to be because of the policy and regulatory framework that Nigerian governments put in place. Right?

[00:23:13] So there's now a vibrant ecosystem of private sector mini good companies in Nigeria as a result of that policy. And that policy together with support from the World Bank has essentially created a new industry.

[00:23:25] And the World Bank just announced I think past week their president, Ajay Banga was in Nigeria for meetings with various stakeholders including our CEO. They just announced that they want to they're targeting a thousand mini grids for Nigeria.

[00:23:40] We think there's room for thousands more actually but none of those things would be possible without a conducive support and policy framework from the government. Nigeria has been great at that. I believe there's a lot that can be transferred from Nigeria's experience to other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

[00:23:55] That's interesting to know. So you mentioned Nigeria has a positive mini grid policy framework. We also know in Nigeria we have the Disco, the distribution company. So for those who aren't aware what are the key differences between say a mini grid developer and a disco within Nigeria?

[00:24:15] Well, I mean Disco is sound cooler. That's for sure. You know, but you know, I just get back to what I at the point I was making earlier on integrated energy systems, right?

[00:24:26] So Disco's typically they better serving areas that are densely populated where there's a lot of economic activity. So urban areas primarily, right? That's where Disco's Excel, I would say. Yes.

[00:24:39] And they're still for sure room for improvement in urban areas as well, but they do better in urban areas than rural areas. In rural areas, they're essentially losing money on every connection that they make.

[00:24:48] And so mini grids are private sector mini grid companies like Husk, we're quite, you know, we're excellent at figuring out how to do this, you know, and to serve rural and peri-urban communities that are harder to serve, right? Where Disco's typically don't do very well.

[00:25:04] And there's a natural synergy there.

[00:25:06] And that's what's exciting right now about what's happening in Nigeria is we're already in conversations with some of the Disco's there to form partnerships where we can come into areas that they have trouble serving, take them on as franchisees or, you know, some other model that we're finalizing right now and actually build a generation asset.

[00:25:26] And the generation and distribution will do all the bill collection, et cetera, et cetera, and actually come in and mobilize private sector capital with a mini-grid developer there to actually manage and operate that service area under the umbrella of the Disco, right?

[00:25:44] So it's a three-way agreement between the Disco, the mini-grid developer and the community. The government has been very supportive of that model and that's starting to take shape.

[00:25:54] And it's going to be exciting to see the impact of what that three-way partnership looks like between Disco, mini-grid developer and peri-urban communities or market areas within towns that would fall within this interconnected mini-grid aspect of what the government's doing. Fantastic.

[00:26:13] So you've discussed the collaboration between mini-grid developer and Disco's. So if you look at other collaborations in terms of what do you believe is the potential for private and public sector collaboration in order to scale up energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa?

[00:26:29] I don't think that you're going to be able to scale energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa unless you have public-private partnership. That's my contention. Yes. The problem is that energy is highly political.

[00:26:43] And the challenge in front of companies like Husk and others right now is to make a business case to central governments, to Disco's, to the communities that those Disco's are serving for scaling up partnership. I mean, the grid hasn't reached off-grid communities for decades, right?

[00:27:01] There's no reason that I'm aware of to believe that that's going to change anytime soon. Maybe in smaller countries with smaller geographical regions, they can extend the grid to everybody maybe like you've seen in Gambia or the Organa.

[00:27:15] But if you're talking about a country like Nigeria or the Democratic Republic of Congo or Mozambique or Angola or Madagascar, I mean these are countries where the idea that the grid is going to extend to these off-grid areas anytime soon is, I think, misplaced, right?

[00:27:29] So that's going to be for the mini-grid developers to take advantage of and support those communities. But there is still this huge opportunity in peri-urban and even urban areas for collaboration.

[00:27:41] What we need to figure out is how to make the case to the powers that be, which are sort of stuck in these legacy mindsets about how to deliver energy and get over that hump so that there's a synergistic relationship between private sector, private capital, and national grids.

[00:28:03] And we reduce the money that the central governments are losing on subsidy. We improve the business performance of the discos. And at the end of the day, the most importantly is that we provide better service to the people of the country that we're in.

[00:28:17] So I think there's a lot of work to be done there, but we're starting to see movement that points to more integrated energy systems. Fantastic. So you've touched on the key points in terms of making the case and marketing the benefits of these partnerships.

[00:28:32] So as the chief marketing officer at Husq, how do you go about promoting energy solutions in rural areas where, I guess, awareness and understanding of renewable energy might be limited?

[00:28:45] I think understanding of how to use energy is limited, but I think everybody understands what the benefits of having energy bring.

[00:28:54] And so there's not a lot of need to convince the communities that we're partnering with to work with us to set up these mini grids and then the transmission and distribution networks that come with the mini grids. They are hungry for access to energy.

[00:29:09] So there's not so much an education required there. I mean, we do have to obviously go and understand the local political environment, understand the power structures and the community dynamics in play,

[00:29:21] you know, different community groups, whether it's youth or women or the village political leaders as well. You have to be very sensitive to that and you have to be really truly partner with them in order to be successful.

[00:29:34] But they want us there, right? And they're regularly we are approached by communities just proactively that we hadn't even thought of asking us if we would come to help introduce mini grids to their community as well.

[00:29:47] But I would say that the area that we really need to do more work on is once we have a mini grid or even before we actually commission it.

[00:29:56] As I said earlier, you're working through town halls and through community groups. We have village power committees that we set up in each one of these places, you know, really bringing the different stakeholders in the community along with us so that they understand,

[00:30:08] okay, this is what we're talking about. This is benefit. These are the risks that you take by paying for whatever the service might be and you know that you are required to pay X, Y or Z.

[00:30:20] This is what you get in return. You know, I think it's really important for us to rebuild that energy literacy because the more literate our customer is, the more satisfied they'll be as a customer.

[00:30:30] So, you know, really trying to take that journey with them and bring them on that journey with us to better understand what the benefits are for energy and how to use it, what makes sense for them based on their income level, etc.

[00:30:45] So you touched on understanding the local political environment. So if you look at the environmental aspect in terms of sustainability, what measures do you take to minimize the environmental impact and also ensure responsible use of renewable resources in the communities that you're based in?

[00:31:05] Right. So if you think of our systems being designed to be operated for 20 to 25 years once they're set up, we haven't really gotten to the end of the life cycle for our systems.

[00:31:18] That said, so there's a lot of recycling and end of life management that hasn't happened yet. But even so, we take that responsibility very seriously in terms of end of life and where all of our components end up going.

[00:31:35] So as a business, that's sort of part and parcel of how we set up our operations. We're very committed to being environmentally responsible. All of our investors have very stringent environmental requirements that they have us meet before they'll even think about investing, whether that's equity and debt.

[00:31:51] So, you know, we are held to a high standard and we hold ourselves to a higher standard. Even I have very strong personal feelings about plastic waste and some of the communities that we're serving.

[00:32:03] We have customers who do water purification and they purify the water and they package them into sachets that they sell to the local communities. And that's creating a lot of plastic waste is providing a really important fundamental service by giving people clean drinking water.

[00:32:16] But it's also the end result is that there's a lot of plastic waste. And so even though that's not directly us powers responsibility, I feel a personal responsibility to try to do something about that.

[00:32:26] So, you know, even there we're trying to look at ways to help avoid unintended consequences from bringing energy into the community that are not sort of indirectly related to what we do.

[00:32:36] So a huge aspect of this assuming is ensuring the maintenance and reliability of the mini grid systems in these areas or communities. So what kind of technical support is provided by Husq and what challenges do you face in this area?

[00:32:55] In every community we go into we hire technicians locally, we train them to make sure that the systems are running properly. That is a critical piece of our business.

[00:33:06] At the same time though, we also know that we're in a very cost sensitive business right so every cost that we add to our business makes our business less viable.

[00:33:16] So we're always looking to take out costs from the monitoring and management of these mini grids. And so we've invested a lot of money in a digital platform that includes Internet of Things, IOT, AI or machine learning, smart meters, etc.

[00:33:31] That give us the highest level of possibility to manage and monitor these systems remotely, which reduces our costs right so the combination of those things hiring local technicians plus a very robust digital platform that allows us to to manage these things almost in an automated fashion,

[00:33:52] allows us then to scale even further and grow our mini grid fleet to the thousands that we want to grow it to.

[00:33:58] Brilliant. So you've touched on this a few times in terms of hiring locals to provide technical support, which is key to what you do. So if we look at the local community aspect, what buying do you tend to require from the community to enable you to operate successfully within those communities?

[00:34:19] It's pretty straightforward. You know, I think what typically happens is we'll approach your community and meet with their leadership and that could be both paramount leaders as well as government leaders.

[00:34:31] Once that's happened and there's a you know an open level of communication and there's some trust built. It's pretty easy to then go forward with leasing some land from that community.

[00:34:42] They'll typically provide the land for us to do that on a lease basis. And then you know in Nigeria, in every community that we're in we also set up these village power committees right that allows for long term engagement with the communities different stakeholders within the community so that you know the relationship that we built to begin with maintains transparency and trust over time.

[00:35:05] So I think it's integral to how we operate. You know, these are essentially getting married to the communities that we serve. And so you have to continue on a continual basis maintain that relationship.

[00:35:16] So setting up power communities does provide long term engagement, which enables you to kind of plan forward into the future. So if we look at the future in terms of many grid solutions, what future or current trends are you seeing in this space that you're currently excited about?

[00:35:37] That's a hard question. There's just a lot of things to put in there but I think seeing the success of what's happening in Nigeria and the potential for that to be exported to other countries, I think that's really exciting.

[00:35:51] So you know other countries looking at Nigeria and other good examples of success and saying, hey wait there's actually a real untapped opportunity for us to take advantage of these types of solutions.

[00:36:03] I think that's hopefully a trend that will accelerate. I think there's a lot of technology innovation that's still on the table. You know whether it's battery storage or further utilizing AI.

[00:36:15] I mean we just want an award for the use of AI in our business but I think we've only scratched the surface of what's possible there in terms of systems automation and customization for community and customer.

[00:36:28] You know, so I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done R&D work on the technical side to continue to innovate and create new ways to deliver electricity and even more sustainable and both business sustainability and environmental sustainability.

[00:36:43] I think the potential role for taking advantage of carbon markets. We're already doing that in India. We just recently started selling renewable energy certificates on the international market as well.

[00:36:56] So I think those two revenue streams should be explored more especially if you're integrating electric cooking into these mini grids. So I think that's an area of great interest. I could go on and on.

[00:37:07] I mean those are just some of the things top of mind that I could think of.

[00:37:11] Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. So if we look forward from current trends into the future, I know this is a very open question. Where do you see Africa's mini grid space in say five years time?

[00:37:23] It depends a lot on government policy and investors or funders, I should say investors including development finance institutions, private foundations, etc. Depends on governments and what policies they enact and how they view the private sector in terms of addressing energy access in their rural communities.

[00:37:44] Let's assume best case scenario that more and more governments come on board and that funders actually start to actually do what they're supposed to, which is have a much higher risk appetite working in these developing markets.

[00:37:57] Assume those two things happen, then the mini-grid industry will really truly start to scale. We're already at 200 mini grids. We think we can get to 2000 by let's say 2026.

[00:38:09] But we're one company and there needs to be 12,000 mini grids built a year in order to reach our potential in Sub-Saharan Africa.

[00:38:16] We're nowhere near that, right? And the only way we're going to get there is if the policymakers and the sources of capital actually do what they've committed to doing, which is electrifying the entire populace of their country and mobilizing financing,

[00:38:31] whether it's climate finance or infrastructure finance or development finance, whatever it is, the forces need to come together to do that. That's the positive outlook.

[00:38:41] If those things don't happen, then unfortunately I think a lot of the statistics that the World Bank that I cited at the beginning of this conversation, which is that 575 million people on current trajectory based on our progress today will still be without electricity by 2030.

[00:38:57] So that's the negative. But I believe that that positive outlook is what's going to happen and it's certainly what we're focused on trying to achieve.

[00:39:05] I agree. We have to stay positive. So if we look closer to home, where do you see yourself and Husk in five years time?

[00:39:13] I mean, we're, we see ourselves as the industry leader. We pioneered the whole concept of mini grids starting in 2008. We want to continue to be the pioneer. We want to continue to push the envelope across all fronts on technology, on business model, on partnership, on all of it.

[00:39:29] And so I think we're going to continue to do that. And in five years, so that'd be 2028, you know, will be well on our way to, we're already well on our way to achieving 5,000 mini grid targets that we set last year.

[00:39:43] I think we'll be close to 5,000 mini grids. You know, I think that's really where I see it. And I think that there's going to be all kinds of exciting ramifications from that myself.

[00:39:54] I don't know. I just became an empty Nestor parent. I have graduated from high school and they're now on to university and building their lives.

[00:40:05] So I hope to explore Africa more. I want to spend good chunks of time in different places in Africa and get to know even more countries better than I already know, Nigeria and Kenya and the places you got under the places that I've already been.

[00:40:21] Fantastic. I look forward to hearing your stories of your travels throughout Africa. Yeah, likewise. As people, we often have quotes, mantras, proverbs or affirmations that keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good. Do you have one that you can share with us today?

[00:40:39] I definitely do. I always cite my father, Joseph, Joseph Brent. He was a bit of an eccentric and a professor of history at a university in the United States. And he always said this thing to me when I was growing up that I never knew what he meant.

[00:40:56] And it was only when I became an adult that I finally sort of put my own interpretation of it together. So he used to say, if the phone doesn't ring, don't answer it.

[00:41:07] And for a long time, I just sort of came in one ear out the other and you know, when I got older, I reflected on that. He unfortunately passed away three, four years ago. Sorry.

[00:41:18] But that actually sort of is my outlook on life these days, which is that how I interpreted that to me and is there's nothing for you to worry about. Don't worry about it.

[00:41:30] So if the phone doesn't ring and there's no problems, don't answer it. If the phone does ring, if the phone does ring. I'm working on focusing on when the phone does ring. Right. So for me, that's almost like a zen way to approach life.

[00:41:45] I think people all get caught up in worrying about things that they can't control or that haven't even actually happened yet. So that's my one mantra. Extremely wise words from Mr. Joseph. Thanks.

[00:41:58] As we're coming to the close of today's conversation, I was wondering, do you have any closing remarks, find a course of action for people who are interested in mini grid solutions in Africa or just the work that you're doing at Husq?

[00:42:13] You know, I'm an open door kind of person. So, you know, if there's anybody who's interested in learning more about mini grids, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. All of my contacts are there, including my mobile phone.

[00:42:25] So, you know, I encourage people, especially young people to get in touch. Think, you know, without the drive, passion and energy of the next generation. I mean, Africa. Wow. I mean, think about the potential, right? Yes. In Nigeria, the average age I think is 19.

[00:42:43] I mean, think about all of that amazing, amazing potential. How do we take advantage of that? How do we help bring that energy, that passion into this issue of energy poverty? You know, so much that that generation has to do and will do.

[00:42:59] So, I'm here to support as I can. And yeah, I mean, I am fundamentally a person who believes that partnership is essential. And I see far too little partnership.

[00:43:12] I see a lot of lip service to partnership, but I see very little actually happening where people are in the trenches together, putting their egos aside, putting their institutional interests aside as much as they can. And I think that's really working together.

[00:43:27] And I think that's also something that I think is going to be a make or break for these types of issues in Africa, you know, so if anybody thinks that there's an opportunity to partner also feel free to get in touch.

[00:43:37] Thank you for sharing your valuable insights and expertise on many great solutions in Africa. It's extremely inspiring to hear the work that you're doing at Husk in terms of transforming the lives in rural communities with reliable and affordable power solutions. Thank you for your time today.

[00:43:57] Thank you, Tercer, for helping to unlock all of these great stories. I look forward to hearing even more in the future. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. And we will speak soon. Sounds good. OK, take care. Thank you to everyone who has listened and stay tuned to the podcast.

[00:44:15] If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share or tell a friend about it. You can also rate reviewers in Apple Podcast or wherever you download your podcast. Thank you and see you next week for the Unlocking Africa podcast.