COMPILED BY BETELHEM BEDLU
It is only logical that the basic necessities of life, such as food, water, shelter, clothing, which we were taught back in school, are not limited to the things that people need to acquire in order to survive, as it is getting broader than that through the course of time.
Though the basic needs are not issue for negotiation, time has made other things like healthcare, sanitation, transportation, technology, and electricity, among others, inevitably essential for our daily routine. Nonetheless, the demand and magnitude might vary according to the demographical location and status that we live in.
Getting electricity is one of the privileges that a person who happens to reside in an urban area can easily acquire. It is as if everything is heavily reliant on electricity to the point where people are highly attached to it.
Unfortunately, the disparity between rural and urban energy use in Ethiopia has almost left those who reside in rural areas off the central electrical grid and has made their lives tedious. Sadly, women and children in rural areas are still using traditional fuels spending hours of their day walking to gather fuel for cooking and lighting purposes, leaving no time to pursue other economic opportunities.
As innovation is born through challenges, a number of power generation means have been introduced like renewable sources such as wind, hydropower, solar power, biomass, and geothermal. Though the majority of the renewable sources are applicable in various areas, yet, solar energy is amongst the major sources of energy that is being used in most rural areas. Amongst the companies that provides solar-powered electrification to off-grid communities in Ethiopia, Green Scene Energy PLC is the one.
Rekik Belele is the founder and CEO of Green Scene Energy plc (GOGLA) and her company is the one availing affordable, high-quality solar-powered electrification to off-grid communities. She earned her first degree in the field of Electrical Engineering. While she was serving in electrical design for about a year, she never thought that she would engage in the solar energy business.
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About eight years ago, she started her career in a company working on building installation, design, and supervision where her role was controlling the solar electrical installation for building project at Axum University.
Rekik then joined a project in solar energy, which was run by a company called SOLAR23. She served as a technical, sales and marketing expert. Her first project with SOLAR23 was electrification of a health center in Koda, a small kebele located between Mizan Tepi and Bonga.
She said her interest in solar electrification grew while working on this project and the basis for her career was formed. After these projects, Rekik joined Plan International and worked on Community-Managed Renewable Energy project in Lalibela for one year.
The project’s goal was installation of solar powered system for water pumping, local clinics, schools, and hospitals. After getting back to Addis Ababa, she joined GIZ and worked there for a year. In GIZ, she was an energy advisor and worked on market development projects for mini-grids, micro-hydro power, solar systems, and improved cooking stoves.
In 2014, Rekik worked on the solar kiosk project in which the project setup 13 kiosks around Ethiopia, which were solar-powered and sold solar products. The kiosks also provided maintenance and promotion for the community. Women were in charge of the Kiosks. As a result, Rekik recruited and trained local women to work in the kiosks.
Rekik founded her first company in 2014 called RK Renew Lighting and Cooking PLC in 2014 with her partner focusing on to address shortage of supply of the inner cladding of the stoves. However, due to several reasons RK Renew failed only after one year in 2015 due to failure in the partnership and not due to a financial limitation.
Green Scene, her second company, was founded in 2017. The company works on solar systems especially solar home systems for off-grid communities. In addition to installing solar home systems for rural communities, Green Scene also wants to work on solar water pumping systems and productive systems that the rural community can benefit from, such as cooling systems, agro-processing -industry systems.
As she talks about Green Scene’s growth, the first year, 2017, was spent establishing the company, selecting and testing products, and looking for partners. During this year, it had only three employees, including her. In the second year, they tried to attract some seed money and won some grants from power Africa to increase their capital, which enabled them to import products. So, they started selling some products. Green Scene achieved significant growth in 2019. In 2019, the number of employees grew from 3 employees to 13 while its turnover grew from 60,000 to 4 million birr.
Despite the ups and downs that the company had to go through due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, they managed to survive. Green Scene has been mainly working in the Amhara, Oromia and SNNPS states. In addition, they have been promoting in other states such as Gambela, Somalia, Afar, and Dire Dawa.
They have also tried different business models like promoting and selling products by themselves, as well as using retailers through recruiting distributers for their products. By collaborating with six micro finances and signing an agreement, they tried to work in more than four regions. For the reason microfinance institutions have a limited reach, as a pilot project, they are exercising Telebirr cash transaction technology to be more accessible.
As they believe their sustainability is dependent on their partners, like micro finances and retailers, they are attempting to improve their business model. They are constantly working on attracting investments to sustain company’s growth.
The Ethiopian National Electrification Program set targets to reach 6 million households with solar and off-grid energy sources, and Green Scene aims to acquire 10 percent of the market or 600,000 households; now, they have already reached 5,000 people and to attain their goal, they aim to provide digitally managed solar energy solutions to their customers. They have also designed different strategies. As part of this strategy, they have signed an agreement with Ethio-telecom to use their sales outlet and are attracting investments to build their capacity.
Rekik said that she was able to see the difference she made through the SOLAR23 projects first hand. As to her, before the project, the health centers in the Koda area had no electricity, which led patients, health workers, and pregnant women who came to the health center to give birth to greater inconveniences and challenges. There have been even fires caused by kerosene lanterns. Women were forced to give birth in dark places with little help from health workers. She believes that their projects were able to solve these problems to some extent.
As an entrepreneur, she has created a job in the energy sector for several people. RK Renew had 13 employees who all were females, while Green Scene had up to 16 employees before they were forced to reduce staff because of the pandemic as they were unable to travel and sell their products. But sales are picking up now and she mentioned that they are going to hire more employees. In its five years existence, Green Scene has reached over 5000 people.
Currently, Green Scene employs nine people, of whom four are women: two are in management positions and the other two works in accounting and sales and promotion. The plan for the company is to reach 50 percent women employees.
Rekik said that they provide quality products that minimize environmental impact. Providing quality products will help to increase the lifeline of the products and decrease waste products. They are also participating in collaboration with NGOs, government, and battery recycling companies to reuse and recycle the batteries.
Green Scene is also planning to collect their products by incentives at the end of their lifetime by tracking them through ‘Pay as you go.’ They also work on awareness creation. Green Scene organized an event called Run For trees. The event was organized to create awareness on environment protection, planting trees and cleaning environs. Around 300 people attended the event and planted 600 seedlings, and collected trash.
Rekik was awarded Influential Women in Energy Award at the Annual Women In energy Event hosted by EWiEn. The award is offered to women who work in the energy sector and have impactful leadership roles in the sector
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 6 APRIL 2023
