“Nevertheless, it must be clear: We are not doing charity in Africa.

We are doing real business and that’s important because we can just really develop this continent. And you just can develop this continent when you really do it on the same eyes level, on a business level. And that’s where we are standing for.”

“What is EWIA? What does it mean? EWIA is a local word, in Twi, it’s the Ghanian language. It means ‘sun’. So our name is our program. We do solar investments in Africa. And we are working with only CNI clients, meaning commercial and industrial clients. And we want to bring solar energy to the small and mid-sized companies, which have high electricity costs and no access or low access to solar. And we want to bring fully financed, let’s say solar-as-a-service to them to come into the position to use solar and replace diesel generators or grid electricity. We have a clear mission, which is to enable the businesses in Africa to use solar.

What we are doing is pure impact investments in solar and infrastructure. This is our core business. So we understand ourselves as a bridge builder for financing between Europe and Africa. At the moment, mainly German investors are going with us, and so we bring German financing to African markets to the smaller, medium sized companies.

What we do, we finance and operate the solar plants. We offer a so-called solar-as-a-service system, which is based on a lease-to-own model including also maintenance and services, insurances. And we manage the system, and as long as we have the solar-as-a-service contract, we are the owner of the system. At the end of the term the client can take over the plan for $1, just a symbolic price for tax reasons. And our, clients are, for instance, private hospitals, hotels, production companies, food processing, cold stores, private schools and so on.

We also have a growery which is in Burkina Faso, it’s a 100% off-grid system. We have a growery in the north of Ghana, and so it’s quite different portfolio.

In the telecom sector, we do not have the solar-as-a-service model. We offer refinancing for our construction of the towers. And we do financing for replacing the diesel generators for existing towers.

So in this market we have seen huge potential. That’s why we entered into this market. And we founded EWIA Infrastructure. A new market where we are coming now, where we are planning to enter now is solar pumps. Solar pumps are in use for agricultural production and for drinking water supply in the rural areas. It’s a big market in Ghana and all over West Africa. Food is necessary and water is necessary, and we are now thinking to enter in this market as well.

And so at the moment we have 250 trees. We are planting them in Northern Ghana, together with a partner who is in the lead and who is doing it. And we enable local village women to generate income and we do something for the climate. So it’s not much, 250, more is here to come, but I think every tree counts today.

So EWIA’s strategy is also in line with the main Sustainable Development Goals. We are a impact company, we have impact, we create jobs, we bring technology transfer. When we calculate we will have invested maybe 25 million Euro directly in solar plants in Africa. Then by 2026, according to our business plan, we will have approximately 31 megawatt installed solar power and which leads to a reduction of 680,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. So we are in line with the SDG goals, which is important also for investors, for refinancing.

So we have a clear vision – clean energy for Africa – whereas we focus on solar energy.”