With a decade and a half long experience in the renewable energy industry, Habiba Ali founded Sosai Renewable Energies Companies sixteen years ago and offers a broad range of solar-powered energy solutions and clean water delivery to rural communities. She was the first vice president of Renewable Energies Association of Nigeria. In this interview, she tells the story of her entrepreneurial journey in the renewable energy space, the ups, downs, challenges and opportunities. Habiba spoke to Stephen Onyekwelu, an energy analyst at BusinessDay. Excerpts:
SOSAI Renewable Energies Company was set up in the year 2004 with the idea of using market-based strategies to address the issues of poverty and rural community development with regards to energy access among other objectives. What has been the journey so far, after 16 years?
The journey after the beginning of Sosai so far has been one filled with ups and downs and many challenges, but in all, I am fulfilled.
We have in essence grown. From a company that started with as little as $6, 000, we now have a turnover of about N247 million yearly ($671,000). We have been listed and have won several awards and recognition.
We have deployed a solution so far that have impacted the lives of over 750,000 persons in Nigeria. It has been a journey and the destination is still in the journey for us as there are many more people in Nigeria that require energy access and we are not relenting in our activity of taking this forward and making global energy access a reality.
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You provide innovative solutions across the entire value chain of renewable energy and distribution, why have you chosen to build an integrated renewable energy company and not outsource some of these activities along the value chain?
In providing renewable energy solutions to people in rural communities of Nigeria, one finds that the people see the company as a solutions provider already and the next thing is to seek the next product in the value chain that would meet a need they have. The need most times comes from the people and we seek the product to meet this from our networks.
For us at Sosai, solving the universal energy access issue won’t be by providing one lighting solution or one cooking solution but an integrated approach that ensures that not just electricity but energy access as a whole is answered to and this would be for lighting (electricity) cooking and to find some sort of income and that is what we do at Sosai currently.
The Matan Arewan Sosai Initiative is projected to create successful women energy entrepreneurs in every community in the North, how are you going about this and where are some of the success stories in terms of location?
For the Matan Arewan Sosai women energy entrepreneurs, we have tried to work with women in communities not just to resell solar-powered solutions but to work with them and find pa solar Powered technology that can help them also generate income.
For example, women can resell solar-powered lanterns and home kits for a commission and we can put them under the “Powered by Sosai” business angle where we could supply them with a refrigerator or a Solar Powered Kiosk or any other income-generating solution that they can use to ensure income and economic activity that would improve their lives and that of their families.
We enter into an agreement that ensures that they own this as a lease to own model and they pay to offset the cost monthly. So far we have about 150 women we work with across all solutions.
What are some of the challenges and opportunities?
One of the main challenges is finding women who can keep the business alive and we have had to resort to thorough recruitment methods so that we get serious minded and ready for growth women.
Another challenge is finding the financing to support the businesses these women run and this is where the opportunity lies because any serious impact investor will be able to grow their resource if they support the women to own their RE based businesses.
What are some of the milestones you have attained in the dissemination, training and installation of improved cookstoves?
A registered United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Project that enabled us to deploy over 40,000 improved cookstoves was our first big delve into the cookstove market in partnership with C-Quest Capital llc.
We met this target and even exceeded by selling a total of so far 65,000 improved cookstoves across several technologies.
The Total Landcare type of cookstove which we finally resorted to due to challenges in the Clean Development Mechanism Market, ensured we trained about 150 youth to build these stoves and we are very happy to have heard good impactful stories of how this increased the incomes of these young ones greatly.
Your clean water initiative shows you striving to improve more than energy access for rural communities, why did you decide to get involved in the provision of clean water?
This was more of the Clean Water initiative seeking us out than we were working towards getting this. At the time we were working at the registration process for the Clean Cook stoves with the UNFCCC, the relief foundation reached out to us to share that they had funding from Arthur Guinness fund to implement a water filter project in Nigeria and this was at a time we had finished some of the baseline studies and were simply waiting for the registration process.
So this came at a good time to seek what other activity to implement. We decided to implement a pilot in some select communities to test reception for the product and it was a hit with the people as such due to demand we signed the project documents with Relief international and started the project.
How much do your energy access solutions, clean water supply and cooking stove cost?
There are varying prices to these solutions. For the Pico Solutions we have systems ranging from N, 3000 to N30, 000 and Solar Powered Home kits depending on what it powers can range between N70, 000 to N240, 000.
How affordable are they?
Affordability is relative. We have tried our best though to ensure we enable people purchase these solutions by proffering several payment options like the lease to own and the Pay as You Go Models
Tell us about your journey into energy entrepreneurship and how important was gender in the process?
As a child who grew up with a mother who sold food cooked on the open fire by the light of a kerosene lantern, I knew first-hand what it meant to have Indoor Air Pollution be your reality and once I learned of the ills of this, I made up my mind to change it especially for the women who I saw sell food by the roadside on my way home every night by the light of kerosene lanterns that billowed unclean air to them.
What could be done to increase the participation of women in this space?
It’s mostly by showcasing that women are doing it and easing the entry point for women. It is currently happening though as you would find that women are gradually taking the renewable energy space head-on and actively being in the not just office part but also as the technical hands in the sector.
Where are the opportunities in Nigeria’s renewable energy solutions market?
Opportunities in this sector are in almost all aspects of any career. One can be an engineer installing solutions, troubleshooting, designing, auditing et cetera.
Research is also necessary for feasibility, baseline studies and monitoring and evaluation. Accountants that can specialise in project accounts specific to the sector are also in high demand. Agents are needed.
With the influx of some serious financing opportunities into the sector I will say, the sector may even just as was evident during oil and gas energy rise, be a need for all people, health professionals, sociologists, environmentalist and more.
How has your business been funded in the last 16 years of its existence?
In the beginning we were stringing it along, boot strapping and the Relief project was the first big project we managed, then the cook stove project paid our bills for upwards of 3 years while also giving us the leverage to grow our turnover.
This made us look good by our books and we were able to seek additional grants, debts, and support to keep the growth.
Where do you see your business in the next 10 years?
The dream is to see that Sosai is that solutions provider who has duplicated itself across all rural communities in Nigeria and be that company that is seen as one that ensures energy access and livelihood improvement. We should by 10 years have been the reason for the positive impact in the lives of over 40 Million Nigerians
