BBOXX, one of the UK’s fastest growing renewable-energy businesses, met with H.E. President Faure Gnassingbé, President of the Republic of Togo to discuss the “CIZO” (“light up” in Guin local language) presidential initiative.
BBOXX will implement 300,000 BBOXX solar home systems in Togo over the next five years under Togolese government’s Vision 2030, which will provide the entire Togolese population with access to electricity via a sustainable energy mix. The current population of Togo stands at 7 million people, of which 700,000 households are living without access to the grid, although 66% of the population has access to a mobile phone.
According to Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mansoor Hamayun: “The President has a strong vision to provide access to electricity to 2 million Togolese people. The governmental authorities have created the right framework to facilitate and attract private capital to electrify Togolese rural households. BBOXX is proud to have been selected by the Government of Togo and we will work hard to deploy our systems across the country.”
The new, innovative partnership between BBOXX and the Government of Togo will seek to roll out the first 10,000 BBOXX systems across Togolese rural areas over the next 12 months. The BBOXX Home – which has successfully been deployed in Kenya, Rwanda, Pakistan, Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola and South Africa – enables the consumer to charge up to five lights, television, radio and torches on a 12V battery. The system’s remote monitoring capabilities allow the operator to view the status of the customer’s product – particularly the battery life and what the customer is using the energy for.
The BBOXX Home permits customers to pay for their energy usage via a mobile-money platform. In turn, BBOXX provides the customer with a full energy service, replacing or upgrading the battery, solar panel and much more.
The presidency press release stated that “in addition to increasing the rural electrification rate from 7% to 40%, the CIZO initiative aims at providing massive adoption of mobile payment solutions across rural areas thus facilitating financial inclusion of rural populations”.
Entry to the Togolese market marks the third West African nation after Nigeria and Cameroon in which BBOXX has successfully launched its solar home system.