Austin Mgbemere is the Founder and CEO of Rockview Energy Solutions Limited, which is based in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. In this interview, he spoke with Yange Ikyaa about how his company’s solar-power solutions leverage what he called the radiant sun, which is abundant in Nigeria and Africa, to supply electricity for homes and businesses. Excerpts:
We are now at a stage in society where the industry is talking about energy sustainability, energy security, and environmental protection as the crux of energy transition, which simply means moving away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. How do you see this segment of the renewable energy industry helping the energy transition here in Nigeria?
Basically, for me, I think the energy transition narrative, which is being sold from the Western world is actually contextualized in the sense that there is a regional approach to the energy transition agenda. So, the way we as Africans are transitioning is not the same pace at which the Western world is transitioning vis-a-vis the benefits and the resources that are available to different regions. Therefore, for Africa, the continent still believes that gas is a transition fuel to achieve net zero. However, they are also believing that technologies, such as carbon capture, storage and utilization (CCSU) will actually come in to help make the hydrocarbons cleaner and also reduce the carbon footprint, as it were, in terms of production.
Yet, there is also a bigger opportunity for us to bring in renewables into the energy mix, whereby the renewable energy will support what we already have in terms of oil and gas, basically. So, that’s the way I see it; it is a symbiotic relationship whereby both energy sources are supporting each other in an integrated manner.
Now, what I what I foresee is us having a kind of hybrid system, where gas is supplying electricity and we still have renewable energy also supplying electricity. So, for times and seasons when we do not have abundant renewable resource to support operations, especially for commercial and industrial purposes, we will have the gas-powered machines coming to step in to support. Furthermore, when the battery banks for our solar, or wind, or thermal, or any other form of renewable energy is depleted, the energy from the gas-powered machines will supply, and when the one from renewable is actually charged and able to supply, it will also supply.
What makes you to consider all these as a basis for your argument concerning renewable energy deployment?
The most important thing is to have consistent and constant energy supply for any of our operations basically in Africa. So that is how I believe that both of them are going to play side by side to support the operations and, basically, one is not going to kill the other. So it’s going to be a joint effort of both energy sources contributing to help us achieve independence in terms of energy access and energy availability.
In Africa, as you know, over 600 million people do not have access to electricity, and that is a lot. Renewables alone will not help us to meet that demand, fossil fuel alone is also not going to help us meet that demand, especially when you look at availability, when you look at pricing and the cost and everything. So, I believe that both of them are going to work hand in hand to help Africa to be able to achieve energy access.
Speaking of renewables, which of the categories of technologies are you most impressed with?
For us basically, like our name goes, Solar Power Solution, that already means that out of all the renewable energy sources, be it hydro power, geothermal, wind, the most important, the most viable, the most abundant resource that appeals to us, which we have started to explore is solar.
However, in the near future, we might also incorporate other renewable energy sources into what we are doing; but for now, we are looking at solar. With time, we can incorporate wind into what we do and also have wind play a major role in what we are doing.
You just finished speaking about solutions when it comes to solar, can you go into specifics?
Basically, in terms of specifics, we focus on providing solar power systems for homes and for offices to provide them electricity. We also focus on providing surveillance systems which are powered by solar, like a solar CCTV camera, which actually works 24/7 and can be monitored remotely.
And then, we also utilize the solar technology to also provide solar street lights, which actually provide lights in the night for streets, which is actually a security measure as well, to scare off unscrupulous elements that will want to cause mischief in an environment.
Basically, those are the major areas of interest, providing smart gadgets and energy efficient gadgets to work for homes and businesses.
Let’s look at the area of cost and cost effectiveness because that is key for those who may come in to patronize your products and also for your own business good. How considerable are these solutions in terms of cost?
In terms of costing, the truth is that, for now solar, if you look it from the first start, averagely solar looks expensive. But if you sit down to do a cost analysis over a period of five to ten years, you will find out that you are saving more when you use solar because you are basically generating your own electricity, which is actually something that is very important. I mean, you are not dependent on the grid and you are also not dependent on the scarcity of fuel or diesel.
So, no matter what happens, you can decide when you want to have power. Therefore, basically, that convenience, that freedom to be able to generate your own power is also one of the beautiful things about solar.
How about the sustainability, because there are those who raise concerns about the sustainability of the systems, citing frequent system failures, which is an issue?
For sustainability, it actually differs. Solar is very sustainable, especially when you are dealing with the right contractor and the right vendor. Sometimes, people use quacks and road side electricians to install the solar systems and, then, before you know it, they run into issues. But if people use a reliable company or entity that deals in solar and that knows what they are doing, they are going to enjoy it for a long season.
However, people sometimes tend to look for very cheap windows to say, oh, I’m looking for where I can get it at affordable cost. Meanwhile, in the real sense of it, it is not about getting it cheaper, but getting it from a reliable provider that will use good and quality materials to give you exactly what you basically need.
So how exactly do you handle these concerns and make sure people get the right instruments?
For us, before we engage in any project, we do energy audits by way of a site inspection. After doing the site inspection, we progress to the next stage where we do engineering design. The engineering design that we do gives us details of what the clients need.
So, from the clients’ needs, and what we’ve done, it will give us an information, an idea of the kind of products that we’re going to deploy for that particular project, and the kind of products that we will use for that particular project will be suitable to meet the needs of that client.
And if we marry everything together, we will find out that we are going to achieve a positive outcome at the end of the day for both parties, both for the clients and for us, because it doesn’t make sense for us to do an installation and every now and then we are being called back to check because of issues.
So, if the proper thing is done, which we normally take time to do, we most often run into lesser issues compared to the road side installers that will just use things arbitrarily without knowing why they are using them.
Whatever gadgets, whatever instruments and equipment that we use on every project, there is a reason why we use them. For example, a breaker, if we are using a 32-amp breaker or a 63-amp breaker, there is a reason why we are using that. If we are using a 400 volt 63-amp breaker, there is a reason why. This is because we’ve done the calculation to check and have an idea of the voltage range, to also have an idea of the current range, so that whatever we are doing will work within this radius.
And, of course, we will run into lesser issues compared to people that will just pick stuff arbitrarily just because they saw it used somewhere. So, it doesn’t work that way. Solar is a bespoke solution, so it has to work to that particular situation.
So, where are you based now; are you operating locally, regionally or nationwide?
We are based in Lagos but we deploy our solutions across Nigeria. Just last week, we were in Port Harcourt to deploy solutions. Today, we are in Abuja to capture the Abuja market, we can deploy our services to any location in Nigeria.