Financial Energy Review
………by Chiamaka Ndubuwa…….
The Chief Executive Officer of Salpha Energy, Sandra Chukwudozie said that the biggest growth so far for her company has been the reaching out to people who are in the rural areas powering them and their businesses with Solar energy.
Speaking at the just concluded “African Women for the Energy Transition” which took place in Sheraton, Lagos and was organized by the German-Nigerian Hydrogen Office in collaboration with the Women in Green Hydrogen (WiGH) and the African Energy Chamber (AEC), Chukwudozie said that at a basic level, the conpany keyed Energy into 5 categories for the rural Dwellers.
According to her one of the categories is energy for productiveness. “How are we using solar to power productive means of income generation. For example, an SME holder how are they able to use their tools powered by Solar” she pointed out.
Chukwudozie who is Forbes 30 under 30, with solid experience in the Energy industry and seasoned with a background in international management, industrial relations and Economics explained that her journey so far in the industry. She noted that the biggest growth for her was reaching out to people who were in the rural area. “I transitioned them. This we did by deploying solar, the basic one that brings them out from the kerosene lamp up to the next type of energy.
“We do that by giving them the solar energy at an outright purchase price. They start the payment over the 3-6months payment plan. In this way we are providing access to primary credit.
“Furthermore we are giving them access to use this product and build a cordial history and from there on we’ll have the privilege of introducing to them the next level of energy products. In summary, the appetite for solar had grown rapidly, with this , we’ve been able to unlock the case of where Nigerians have no access to energy through business models, how do we create the financing that can make them access this product. This is what I’ve been able to do so far” she said.
On what Skills she has been able to acquire and witnessed emerging from clean energy businesses which should be explored. Salpha Energy CEO explained using her solar energy business that Nigeria has a big problem when it comes to data collection.
According to her in order to have proper data on the rural populace and their demand the company had to visits the rural areas to deploy their system “In order to upgrade the rural people as well as meet their energy demand we have to know how many men,women and children are consuming the solar energy and since we are providing a credit financing to them we are able to know how many are retaining this energy.
“In summary one of the most important skill is Data Management, how we are able to gather data and tell the story.
“With Data analysis, data management and telling the story we at SALPHA are able to produce our products, we know what customers want, we have to know what they are lacking even before they request for it so by so doing we bring the data and pour it into a tech which is called AI(Artificial Intelligence). We make use of predict analysis we were able to have the data and project what the economy will look like” she said.
