Ariya Finergy is an award-winning company that is shaping the energy future of Africa, driving the next industrial revolution. At the Kenya Solar Week 2024 awards ceremony: it took home top honors as Solar Company of the Year: EPC (Engineering Procurement Construction) for Advanced Energy Storage Solutions and Best Solar Off Grid Project of the Year.

Sebastian Csaszar

Co-founded by Jenny Fletcher, CEO, and Troy Berry, and Chief Technical Officer, Jenny’s 15-20 years’ experience in renewable energies inspired the vision to elevate commercial and industrial companies struggling with power challenges.     

Head of Business Development at Ariya Finergy, Sebastian Csaszar talks about their contribution in reducing overreliance on the power grid and their plans for Africa.

 

Ariya Finergy primarily works with the commercial industrial sector in Africa with offices in Kenya, Kampala and Dar es Salaam.  Our target clients are large-scale manufacturing industries whom we help to solve very complex power challenges by giving them control over their production schedule ensuring they have reliable clean and uninterrupted power. That gives them an increase in production and increase in market share which boosts the profit margins.

Across Kenya, we have about 52 sites in a wide range of industries; tea farms, flower farms, plastic manufacturing, heavy manufacturing companies, logistics and cold chain.

Three of our flagship projects are; one in a tea factory in Kericho, Kenya has about 400kWp(kilowatt peak) of solar, 545kWh (kilowatt hours) of batteries and power stabilization solution. The second is in Kampala Uganda which is now 2.6-megawatt peak and 2.6 megawatt hours of batteries. And finally, we have broken ground on our first project in Tanzania and that is 1.25-megawatt peak, 2-megawatt hour battery.

There’s one exciting one we finished in Naivasha, Kenya.  It’s for a green ammonium plant that’s completely off the grid running on solar 2-megawatt peak and 800 kilowatt hours of batteries supporting the production of fertilizer from green ammonia. The project boosts the fertilizer supply in Kenya which impacts fertilizer prices.

Financing of projects and related opportunities

We have financial partners who give us the flexibility to provide financing to clients in primarily two ways; lease to own, where they make fixed monthly payments over a determined period or Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) where we own the system and the client pays for the consumption of the energy utilized.

Award winners at the Kenya Solar Week 2024

What we face as a challenge and I know this region faces is financing. Even with those partners onboard, implementation of the projects is still expensive to the client and that is a potential area of investment by development partners. The clients we are dealing with are very bankable and reputable. Some of the FMCGs we are talking to are very big businesses. Why is the financing so high for these companies?

So, job creation is one thing that we firmly believe we indirectly provide. We’re not hiring people, but we’re giving our clients the means to do so.

In line with the global promotion for uptake of renewable energy, we need more competitive financing in Africa. As of now the companies we are talking to are searching through on their own means, their own banks, and hence the need for friendly terms to prospective clients towards driving this agenda of the just transition.

Access to green bonds and green energy financing

There was a bond available, along with some loans, for renewable energy that has dried up and is now nonexistent. However, there’s a US$300 million green bond available for Tanzanian companies to invest in renewable energy which we are actively pursuing.

Project in Uganda

Another avenue we’ve been exploring to bring down the cost of the required capital is through carbon credits. We’ve been in touch with several carbon credit aggregators, which would essentially allow us to upfront the carbon credit yield over the project period, thereby reducing the capital expenditure (capex) of the project and subsequently lowering the required financing.

Our goal is to easily achieve 50 megawatts per year over the next decade and get access to carbon credits as we ramp up our projects should become easier for us.

Impacts to the local communities

Through our projects, we provide clients with predictability in production and increased profits which we encourage them to reinvest in the company or however beneficial. Investing in the factory could mean purchasing new machinery, expanding production lines, or opening another site location. And what does that mean? More jobs which directly benefits local communities.

Another aspect is that we train the staff on-site on how to maintain these systems at a high level. This means up skilling the on-site staff. They learn about solar PV, battery storage, PV inverters, cabling, and more. I hope that this up skilling indirectly leads to job creation, whether they remain at the factory or join a renewable energy company.

What we face as a challenge and I know this region faces is financing. Even with those partners on-board, implementation of the projects is still expensive to the client and that is a potential area of investment by development partners.

Generally, our solutions lead to job creation, not job loss; because there’s reinvestment in the factories we supply power. It’s not about making people redundant; it’s about reinvesting our time and resources into training staff to help maintain the systems.

Local and international collaboration

We hold discussions with the government. For instance, we’ve discussed the net metering concept, which involves selling power back to the grid. When the government releases drafts of legislation, we review them thoroughly, provide feedback, and offer our insights on what would be most sensible.

Regarding duties and levies on imported solar PV equipment, we actively advocate for fair policies. We emphasize to the government the importance of maintaining exemptions on items like solar panels. Imposing duties could significantly impede our ability to deploy large-scale PV and battery storage projects, which are crucial for the country’s renewable energy objectives and meeting COP pledges, as outlined in the Paris Agreement. By working closely with the government, we strive to ensure that our perspective as a key player in the industry is considered.

We have projects across tea farms, flower farms, plastic manufacturing, heavy manufacturing companies, logistics and cold chain. Across Kenya, we have about 52 sites in a wide range of industries.

For NGO’s we’ve explored potential partnerships with organizations throughout East Africa extending beyond the three countries we currently operate in. While we haven’t established concrete collaborations with most of them just yet, it remains an avenue of interest for us.

We also actively engage with other strategic partners who are the voice of the industries we target. As members of this association, we support their initiatives, participate in their events, and provide feedback on impending legislation. Given that many of their members are our clients, it’s essential to ensure that their interests are also represented and served effectively.

Plans for power investments in Africa

The short-term future we want to fold Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as our fourth country as we look to expand into southern and West Africa. The solution that we offer can be applied to many big power consumers in many different countries, but primarily manufacturing, FMCG, even mining.  Those mines that you know in West Africa and Southern Africa, a lot of them are running on either fully diesel, or there is some grid, but it’s just unreliable.

Imposing duties could significantly impede our ability to deploy large-scale PV and battery storage projects, which are crucial for the country’s renewable energy objectives and meeting COP pledges, as outlined in the Paris Agreement

Imagine if we can just eliminate most of that or all of it. The amount of savings, the amount of reinvestment in local communities, obviously the environmental impact, reduction in CO2. We want to be the power partner for Africa.