live and uh good to have you this morning again hello can you hear me okay yes live loud and clear lagos can hear you too how are you i'm doing this um yeah absolutely not as fun as being in the studio with you shy but we'll manage don't worry i mean i'm sure we're gonna be fine okay so dear listener today our focus is renewable energy access for small scale fisheries and i'll let uh adobe you know bring in our guests a special guest we have today um someone uh we we look forward to you you know uh meeting and also hearing from his word of experience as we talk about renewable energy access for small scale fisheries so it will be over to you sure super hi everybody our special guest today is ken de adewaye he is the managing director of a1 power technologies limited which is an integrated energy services company welcome kende yeah good morning anavi thank you so much good to have you thank you so much all right i mean i know for sure um by the way welcome again kaine and uh good to have you indeed so i know for sure that you have you have over 24 years of engineering and business experience and most of this experience has been in telecommunications right all right how did you transition to renewable energy how did that transition happen really okay thank you so much uh you know i haven't worked a lot in telecoms uh you know i kind of saw first-hand um the power problems i mean i kind of understood it um a lot more deeply you know how it was a pain point for businesses and i see a lot um you know 2013 when the privatization started you know the electricity privatization i thought it'd be good to to position for that you know so that's how i came into electricity sector uh as it were um you know in 2015 we actually started working uh doing some middling uh doing work and we did that for about three years and around about 2019 you know with the uh we talked to diversify family because um i mean the environment in nigeria became more enabling uh you know people like the rva like all on and you know uh solar technology became kind of cheaper becoming a bit more affordable became a bit more mainstream and so 2019 um a1 power diversified into solar and uh you know we've done a few things we've disputed uh solar panels we've done some systems integration and then in 2020 uh we co-developed a small one system kind of design on other model system um manufactured for us and you know and um we were able to take that to a community yeah anybody like you and i mean we've just gone up from there really thank you interesting quick question really impressive i read on your website that your company has delivered over 25 000 electricity meters for large um large and small power users in nigeria over the past three years so is that a core service that a1 provides um yes yes you know as i said we started there and um i mean we started there and if i may just uh even update that that information unfortunately it's a bit out of date uh right now we've done about 45 000 uh so far yeah and um you know that we in terms of there's some we've got we have a wide variety of experience but in terms of where in the country we have worked uh what kind of customers we're serving and what kind of projects they are uh so in the north uh in the north we work permanently with abuja disco and cardinal electric we walked over what um we did about 25 000 meters in the seven states and those were prepaid you know so that's a class of customers prepaid maintenance we pay residential yeah uh coming to the south and you know specifically lagos we've worked for keja and eco um eco disco over the past seven years and most of our current work in meeting is with those discourse here we've done about twenty thousand we've done residential we've done commercial industrial and we've done we're doing statistical meeting uh which is um measuring of public transformers you know in terms of projects you know the different projects um there was the cap me i don't know if you know that there's a company there was map that's a meta set provision right now there's the national mass meeting project which uh you know this phase zero has just been completed uh we've also participated in that so yes indeed it's a it's a call it's a corsair resource and an event so all right beautiful you know talking about renewable energy is one of those very many solutions that's you know in as much as it's beautiful and um we know the benefits you still have to like go extra amount to explain look it's better you know it's safer you have to do all of that let's talk about diesel for for example let's talk about the price of diesel for example which of course has more than doubled in the last uh one year and i think it's about 750 right now i'm not very sure and um it is you know the average nigerian can't even cope with this in your view right and an experience in this renewable energy is it a viable solution because some people still would say yeah i'd rather go on queue to get the disru you know rather do that i'd rather spend early extra you know that's the audit you get from the people so is this a viable solution i mean absolutely you know it's a matter of um what you call total total cost of ownership yeah you know so you said that you you you struggle at the beginning maybe let's say you suffer now and enjoy for a long time or you oh you suffer a little bit for a long time which is what diesel is you know so in terms of the viability um the total cost i mean it's a no i mean the total cost is cheaper because it's it's there um you you take the upfront cost now and then it's free i mean going i mean going forward and more importantly the cost of pollution you can't even quantify that's right you know the cost of pollution you can't quantify so i think it's i think it's viable and the technology is really really i mean it's really progressing uh the cost of solar is coming down the cost of batteries are coming down um i mean they're and in more advanced economies they're even doing things like grid storage so now you can even store energy at a grid level you know so so there's a lot of um there's a there's a lot of progress i think it's viable i think it's not i think it's valuable so um let me just step in there very quickly this is this is the like the bone contention candy you you are in the industry you are an s you are a subject matter expert you said that the cost is definitely less that you know when you compare diesel to renewable energy your choices are to pay more now and less later as opposed to diesel where you're paying continuously but what is it about this message that people are not getting because it's not the argument we're always having we're always trying to prove that it is indeed more cost effective so let's even not talk about the health aspects but in terms of cost why is that message as many times as people like you say it what is it that we're not doing that people are not understanding this very basic fact i think i think i think the huge thing really is access to finance you know so i think um really when when you know that okay these things cost x and in most cases you need to bring up x from your pocket once and for all then um you don't really want to know you just say this is expensive you know for the other places and to a large extent that's also growing in nigeria now this financing you know there's financing that makes it affordable at the end of the day there are different models uh there are models where uh your players should go the models where you can do like a solar lease where you're just losing uh and of course very big in nigeria now they're very big on in the commercial space now they're top party investors who are coming in and they are just they just bring they just like the same way you pay for your nepa bill it's the same way that i mean you're paying you're paying for this um as you're as you're using it so so i think if that becomes more mainstream um and there's a lot of work been done good work solar niger solar like 5 million connections 25 million homes and businesses the whole idea is to put solar into people's homes on on very very very affordable places so i think with more programs like that uh people are gonna people are gonna get it more because at the end of the day uh you know everything can make sense but if i cannot afford it today if i cannot pay for it today i cannot then it makes no sense beautiful well well well answered clarification yes well answered now if you're just joining us you're listening to part solutions on nigeria info it's brought to you in partnership with all on that's energy investment company if you know uh for sure every monday every uh this this day every week we get to have this conversation on the radio and i'm being joined as a co-host by adobe new indie who's the policy and the partnerships manager of all on and our guest today so the next part in the field is talking about candy a dewey is the managing director of a1 par technologies and we're talking about renewable access energy access for our small scale fisheries we'll get into the mata in just a moment but i am aware you know i'm one of those who's aware that uh a1 power was announced as one of the 13 winners of the 2021 uh uasdf all on upgrade energy challenge that received about a hundred not about a hundred thousand dollars blended finance for sure i think that's that's that i'm correct with that so how did this help the company and um how do you planned plan to use these funds now before you respond to that um let me go back and bring the listener in about the previous uh question or the previous question that's adobe asked that has to do with solar why people had issues so if you're listening out there i want you to send a message to us tell us if you're not using solar or any renewable energy why are you not using it just just examine it and then answer that question you know uh i mean as sincere as possible because that things you may not be aware some people say it's the cost there's this solution you may just need the information if you say it's a cost oh it's too costly it's too high there's always a way out but i just want you to answer that question sincerely why are you not using sola so send us a message to 0-700 or zero eight zero nine five nine seven five eight zero five or you can even send the message uh uh on our socials right now we're streaming live on facebook and youtube answer right there i'd like to hear your sincere response to that so back to you to the 100k uh funds as it were let's talk about that now uh thank you sir i think uh first and foremost uh thanks to all on usadf yeah you know for the support uh for this sector uh you know for their support for the i mean the homegrown companies that are doing very well a lot of the companies here started with olon so thank you alon thank you sadf um so i mean for us the process um i mean just by participating in the process i would say we already won because in order to do some research to make sure this wasn't our first time so it's like maybe the second time so we had to do some research so definitely we learned and um a lot of hard questions were asked of us you know so you know we took a good look at our business we had to develop some new skills in the application and evaluation process so already even without winning the 100k that was a lot of value right there now of course the 100k significant huge huge for our business and i mean what are we going to use this for so we're going to use this to um [Music] to to deploy a cold chain a solution and uh 250 small home systems in two communities in in individual that's what we're doing with these fantastic can i just ask a follow-up question so why um so it's fish so why is your lucky by the way okay okay great so um so in coming to sola i think um okay basically in coming to and coming in and coming to solar we uh in 2020 as i said we co-developed a solution um a a pretty much a 80 watt box a small box you know that one for lighting fan laptops very small and we were able to uh in terms of our prospecting because we're looking at a different market first we were looking at markets in like auburn little auburn um but what we are the other we have some challenges you know in connecting with the market so we went looking for co-operatives and we were connected to the lego state fisherman's cooperative you know and you know we met the chairman and he said okay i live in vegeta bring your solutions there let us start from where i live you know that's how we go to beijing so in 2020 we started deploying and over time we deployed about of course i mean being able to pay being able to pay cash it was an issue there so we had to do pay as you go and you know so we deployed about 50 50 boxes uh players you go busy starting in september 2020 and that's how that's how we go to vegeta key okay just just related to that i also know that there is a community of about 600 female seafood producers who you know who operate in that area um are there any specific plans to ensure that women specifically those female entrepreneurs benefit from this solution absolutely absolutely okay so let me just go okay so let me give us a little bit of a better background so when we deployed those systems you know so over time begins so we had issues of you know repayment and i think the biggest issue was that a lot more people wanted these solutions but because we were self-financing it so we were limited in what we could do so on the one hand uh we needed that we didn't have the financial to support a lot of people and then with some of the people that had problems you know when we dug in so they're saying that hey we're fishermen or we're fishing women the business is not doing so well we have a lot of losses you know so we um working with the co-operative we decided that okay this is something to look at and look at deeply so we took our time to understand the problem you know in depth so we decided with the cooperative to you know provide a solution which will reduce the uh the losses that both the fishermen and the women face in uh you know the fish coming from the coming from the the sea to the table uh there's a lot of losses along the way because of because of deficiencies and the cold chain yeah so specifically for women and most of the women are processors and traders you know so once they get the fish it's theirs they've already committed to it once they cannot store it they lost totally totally theirs so in terms of being able to preserve the fish short term in transit to to the end users or being able to preserve it a bit more long term say they decide to sell later you know that's how these solutions uh will help them and you know right now some of the preservation methods that they have to make sure they don't lose what they can sell they'll be laborious and most of it is actually by uh what's it called now they they do wood burning wood burning to to dry and i need that of course so that's um that has health implications you know i mean there's some people who i mean that's the application so so now with this option that we are providing um you know both from a an economic point of view uh from an else point of view from a use of time from an efficiency these are some of the ways in which this will be helpful to to the woman well very very very inspiring i know the listener i'll be wondering okay great how this impacts me let me tell you a few things how many people do even ask the question with the fish i'm eating today where did they come from what area how who who caught it who who brought it here and all that you know we don't ask that question because she does go to the market to buy but when it comes to the pricing um you want to ask questions why is it expensive now with such a solution is sure that of course the farmers so the fish fisher women and men will be able to get i mean more value to be able to preserve their food their fish is better and that may affect the price because you know once you are not spending a lot to get it to the market or in good shape you most likely you know it would impact the price positively from the perspective of the consumer so that alone is a i can see the multiply effects of your solution and how it goes so i asked the question earlier about uh why are you not using sola and i'm getting some comments already one uh let me take this one that says good morning collins quickly is that the reason i'm not using solar yet is the fact that i need it for ironing because i am a fashion designer and i'm yet to hear about solar energy with such potential in nigeria yet you know i'm skeptical about the fact that it won't be available or it won't be uh it'll be too expensive if it's available i'm uh just starting my business you see the reason i asked that question is because people have misconceptions about solar and uh this is just one of them who wants to react to that adobe or let's pretty much don't take it from me because that's what i do i want kende is more you you are the sme they will believe you first so please can you answer that question somebody is saying that he's afraid to invest in solar because for example something as simple as ironing might not be able to carry a solar load can you please educate people no you know so solar actually i mean so i can do i'll say anything it's just a matter of i'm a solar you're lucky to i mean to put in place so absolutely solar can ion um you know so solar is a form of energy yeah you know every energy supports the sun and lobed i mean that's just what it is you know um so so pretty much solar can power ions solar can power milling machines solar pump power grinding machines it's a matter of what capacity of solar we're talking about and it's also very essential to make sure that the load and the capacity uh match you know so so i mean as i said at the beginning so i can power anything it's a matter of how how how far you're willing to go all right let's add to that if i can just add to that as a consumer so all arms offices run completely on solar there's about 18 of us in those offices we're using acs we're using high-tech equipment and it's run on solar so um fashion designer i promise you you can you can you can use an iron on on solar and if i may say function designer there are solar-powered sewing machines if i mean just to handle specifically for you you learn yeah absolutely they are solar-powered airports or hospitals by the way villages absolutely it's a part of the world so so i think i think that um that question is a very important one because a lot of people think that solar power or solar energy is kind of like less of an energy i mean compared to you know when they hear from the national grid is strong but i think that has to be wiped off and thank god for power solutions and indeed uh moments like this to address such things okay uh let's move on now i think adobe's got the next question sure just going back to the solution that you are working on in bajilecki so we understand that residents and businesses in that community actually indicated their willingness um to pay for this solution right so people know about this people who actually ask for this now is that more from a price point two questions is that more from a price point or from a health perspective and second question is so how affordable is your solution okay thanks avi i think um i think i'm an awareness perspective i will say that we were not the first to get to that community to be honest um they had we met some i mean relatively wasn't it wasn't totally virgin and but affordability affordability i don't think affordability and information i think um well got their expectations of what this can do and what this can't do um you know was an issue and affordability clearly wasn't i mean it was an issue uh i mean are still an issue so um in polling people and develop in developing this project it was very clear that um okay so our systems that we took there were self-financed as i said mostly six to 12 months at the most because this was self-financed so we got an indication that oh you know if this was 18 to 24 months maybe much it was a bit longer period and then the monthly fee will become lower that was doable for them and you know and that with the all on i really all on grant that we're getting uh that we've been able to do because um you know we have access to funding to do that now so uh the systems that we're putting in now we're putting in two different kinds of systems there's a smaller 80 watt and a big eye one 180 water can do a lot a lot more things and we're looking at a monthly repayment now of about 700 about 7 500 to like 12 000 monthly over 18 to 24 months and um another thing another experience we had then was we just supplied a solar box that's what we could supply so people wanted fans of course the solar box itself came with some lights but people of course wanted fans and that was a challenge because a fan by itself a lot of people believe it or not they couldn't buy it at once so this solution now we are bundling it with with fans um we're bonding with fans with radio small radio small touch so they can do a bit more things now so there's lighting there's cooling there's a bit of entertainment and they have all of that in one price so i think it's affordable i mean relatively coming from where where what what we did before and so i think it's affordable in terms of the cold chain solution itself you know that's the big one you know a cold room it's not i mean a cold wound is tens of millions of nail you know so the the solution we have here it's uh it's cooling as a service you need to own a cold room uh just bring your stuff there you pay daily we're looking at about a hundred and fifty to twenty nine a day for your produce and then additionally a big big thing that we found there was the uh you know the viscosity of heist block you know you know at ice block uh the price the price the price um fluctuation could be very well very wild you know very wide depending on our availability so we're finding that you could buy a bottle of coke today for 150 if it's cold tomorrow it could be 250 because there's no highs today so so we have uh we have an 800 kilogram capacity heist block maker in this solution and we're looking to do ice block at about a hundred nana per kilogram you know the beautiful thing about all of this is that primarily it's all powered by solar it's all powered by solar because if you ask anybody they will tell you that one of the biggest issues of the ice block business everywhere is power you know it's power it's the power goes love uh but now we're working with a you know young nigerian company um and the ice block machine is from a young nigerian company young you know innovative nigerian companies very high it's very it's highly it's highly efficient it's lower power so um all right we're rolling out some numbers there candy no matter how you slice it it's going to be cheaper when you consider we're buying diesel at 7.59 or details right right absolutely yes all right i think you've addressed the of the questions but in one minute right um it's very important question where do you plan to take a one power in the next say five years that's one and then how can interested listeners reach you some people are asking several questions so how does it call how much does it cost i've got i can see some messages coming in so first of all where do you want to take a1 in the next five years they're about and how can interested individuals listening right now connect with you okay all right so so for the moment we want to focus on powering agriculture in the immediate we want to you know do more of the small scale um small scale fishing sector where the where the participants live work and play we want to bring renewable energy there that's what we want to do there i want to expand again we want to expand our small home system uh solutions and um of course on the maturing side there's a lot to do there there's a there's a new program now to install about four million meters in nigeria we think that's going to be a game changer because our whole power sector has an issue of liquidity so if you put it four million meters there and you know that's going to solve that problem so those are the immediate things that we want to do right now yeah so in terms of reaching out to us our website we are at a1powertechnologies.com um we have our instagram and on facebook we are on instagram a1 powertech and in terms of telephone we can reach us on our customer service line at 0701 806 5602 all right thank you very much and that would be thank you colleen that'll be it for the show today i must say thanks to both of you uh first of all my co-hosts the beautiful adobe on the windy thank you for being a part of this indeed and to the amazing guest of course uh you've done justice in the questions we say merci beaucoup thank you very much for that and that's it thanks colleen thank you very much both collins i've missed you this virtual ain't working for me okay i'll see you in the studio next time absolutely thank you all right that's it for power solutions join us again next week for another episode in the meantime stay tuned the news coming up and i can see we'll be more adiwani on standby to bring you africa's most authentic news bulletin i'll say that with my full chest god bless you my name is collins [Music] thank you bye for now it matters info
2022-03-28