By Precious John

The inaugural AFSIA Solar Awards, organized in partnership with the Africa Energy Forum (aef), culminated in a grand show streamed online on 29th October. During this ceremony, the winners of 15 categories were unveiled and celebrated.

More than 130 entries were submitted across the different categories from all over the continent over the past few months. The Jury, composed of leading experts in solar energy in Africa, have carefully evaluated each entry to identify the most deserving companies and individuals to be awarded the grand prize during this online ceremony.

Among the 15 categories in competition this year, the most disputed titles included “C&I Project of the Year” and “Mini-Grid Project of the Year”, which is reflective of the increased activity of both of these segments of the African solar industry. “Woman in Solar of the Year” has also been particularly popular among participants. This highlights the very positive trend of the growing involvement of women in the solar industry across the continent.

Utility Scale Project of the year

Sterling & Wilson Solar, for the multi-projects 322 MW contribution to Egypt’s 1.6 GW Benban Solar Complex

Commercial & Industrial Solar Project of the year

CrossBoundary Energy, for the Jabi Lake Mall project in Abuja, Nigeria

Mini Grid Project of the year

Africa GreenTec, for their productive-use based Mini-Grid projects in Mali, Niger and Senegal which are often subject to high security risks

Solar Home System Company of the year

d.light, for achieving the target of reaching 100 million people with solar energy

Residential Project of the year

Munyax Eco, for exceptional achievement in the field of Solar Water heaters having installed more than 1,000 units across Rwanda saving 8,000 tons of CO2 per year

African Solar company of the year

ANKA Madagascar, for securing 5 MW worth of mini-grids across Madagascar and for the company’s innovative AgriGrid model

African Solar SME of the year

Pawame And Solar Box Gabon, for reaching 80,000 Kenyans with Solar Home System solutions while achieving cash-flow break-even and profitability for developing the “Solar Cube” which doubles the production of traditional solar panels

Financial Advisor of the year

Synergy Consulting Infrastructure and Financial Advisory Services, for their advisory services to cutting-edge large-scale projects across the continent such as the 2×50 MW tender in Botswana, the 32MW Djermaya project in Chad or the world’s first PV-CSP hybrid 200MW project in Egypt

Legal Advisor of the year

Eversheds Sutherland, for their contribution to the Open Solar Contracts with IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and the Terrawatt Initiative, providing open source standardized contracts to governments across the globe

Technical Advisor of the year

Suntrace, for technical advisory to the Fekola Gold mine hybrid project in Mali, a first of its kind off-grid hybrid project composed of 36 MW of solar, 15.4 MWh of storage, saving 13 million litres of heavy fuel oil annually

DFI of the year

African Development Bank (AfDB) for establishing SEFA, the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa which has contributed among others First of its kind inventory finance facility for solar irrigation products in East Africa

Woman in Solar of the year

CEO of Daystar Power Ghana, Olaedo Osoka for leading the expansion of the company from Nigeria to Ghana, Togo and Senegal and realizing C&I projects of 8MW in this 2-years period… only at the age of 27!

Solar Innovation for the year

Phaesun for their work on the RevivED Water Innovation project, a solar-powered desalination and purification systems for brackish water based on electrodialysis technology providing up to 2000l of clean drinking per day

Solar Picture of the year

Alexandre Skander Allegue – Pawame for a beautiful picture highlighting the impact of lighting in the most remote areas

Solar video of the year

Joanna Gentili – African Minigrids, for a super inspiring and motivating video about electrifying a village in Malawi

An exceptional and global platform

The awards ceremony was organized in collaboration with aef and was conducted online.

This year, aef joined forces with the African Utility Week & POWERGEN Africa plus Oil & Gas Council’s Africa Assembly this October to host a ‘Digital Africa Energy Festival’ – the largest ever energy event for the African continent.

Founder of AFSIA, John van Zuylen commented; “AFSIA Solar Awards is delighted to be hosted by this much respected programme and to unveil the winners during a digital ceremony on October 29th.

The event was organized as a great show celebrating exceptional achievement in the solar industry and hosted several African personalities such as Ndumiso Lindi, the host of the awards, and the African band and dance troupe ‘Les Merveilles de Guinee’ who gave a thrilling performance. Several leaders of the global industry such as Huawei, Trina Solar and Jinko Solar also provided their support to make this a truly exceptional event.”

Meet the jury

Applications to the AFSIA Solar Awards were evaluated by some of the most experienced professionals of the African solar industry. These experts reviewed every application independently and selected the best ones in each category.

This year the jury was composed of Head of Sector Private Projects, EETC (Egypt), Engr. Lamya Abdel Hady, Executive Director, ECREEE (Cape Verde) Bah F.M. Saho, Board Member, SAPVIA (South Africa), Jo Dean Jasandra Nyker, Managing Director, Denham Capital (South Africa), Aaron Leopold, CEO, AMDA – Africa Minigrid Developers Association (Kenya), Linda Munyengeterwa, Regional Industry Director for Infrastructure, IFC (South Africa), Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Research and Innovation Department, Strathmore University (Kenya) Dr. Izael Da Silva and Managing Director, EnergyNet (UK) Simon Gosling.