The EEP Africa donors gathered for three days in Cape Town, South Africa for the annual Supervisory Board meeting. The two-day meeting concluded with site visits to two grantees: one from the newly approved cohort and a successfully completed project from the 2020 cohort.
The donors of the EEP Africa Trust Fund meet annually to discuss the activities and results for the fund over the past year. During 2024, a performance evaluation of the fund was conducted, which showed that EEP Africa is fit-for-purpose, addresses a market need, and has positively impacted the supported companies and their end users. Furthermore, a new cohort of 32 incoming grantees from the 2024 Call for Proposals was approved by the Investment Committee meeting in the beginning of October this year. The active portfolio includes 31 projects from 2023 call, and 18 projects from earlier calls in 2018-2020.
On the final day, the delegation visited two grantees in Cape Town: Zonke Energy and Plentify.
Zonke Energy is a social enterprise in Cape Town South Africa dedicated to serving residents of off-grid informal settlements with safe, reliable, and affordable energy. To address these issues, Zonke Energy offers a pre-paid energy service through solar-powered microgrids.
Zonke Energy is from the new cohort, which started implementation this year. The company will establish 25 of their innovative solar towers, combining several essential components including solar PV panels, battery storage, battery protection, and remote monitoring capabilities, all housed within a 3-meter container. In addition, the company will distribute 250 SHS units through their partner, iShack. The incentive is to encourage SHS owners to connect their systems to neighbouring solar towers, promoting a collaborative energy-sharing approach.
The delegation visited two solar towers in the Qandu Qandu informal settlement in Khayelitsha, in Cape Town. The Zonke Energy team gave an overview of their service offering and their community approach. Of the eleven towers in the area, the team conducted tours of two towers. The delegation also had the opportunity to meet one of the beneficiaries and visit her home.
Sive Siyepu, the Maintenance Technician at Zonke Energy, and the team conducted tours of two towers in the area.
The EEP Africa delegation listening to Alex Densmore, Technical Director at Zonke Energy, explaining the community approach of their service.
One of the beneficiaries, Nelly, is showing how the solar electricity works in her home.
Plentify is an energy technology company in South Africa that enables smarter, cleaner, and cheaper electricity through a smart home platform that adapts to user behaviour and the needs of the grid. The project, which is a successfully closed project of the 2020 cohort, piloted an innovative technology that transforms household water heaters into intelligent thermal batteries for smart, clean energy.
Electric water heaters waste half the energy they consume and drive-up demand at peak times when solar is not an option. Unmanaged peak demand exacerbates load shedding and creates spikes in energy use, increases the electricity bills and damages grid infrastructure. Plentify’s HotBots are smart devices that turn water heaters on only when needed and at optimal times for the electric grid. This shift in energy consumption improves efficiency and boosts solar capacity for municipalities.
EEP Africa financing enabled Plentify to expand its pilot project in Cape Town and demonstrated the environmental impact and economic value of the technology. HotBots were deployed into 500 homes in the City of Cape Town. This project brought together both public and private partners to improve energy reliability and efficiency, which will accelerate the adoption of renewable energy, reduce the cost of electricity and ensure hot water for households and businesses.
The EEP Africa delegation visited the main office of Plentify where Jon Kornik, founder of Plentify, gave an overview of the project and its results and shared some lessons learned from the project. The delegation also had the opportunity to tour the warehouse where product components are received and assembled.
Leon Daglish, Operations Technician, Plentify, shares technical details on how the HotBots work.
Arno Scholtz, the Operations Director at Plentify, gives a tour in the warehouse for the EEP Africa delegation.
The Energy and Environment Partnership Trust Fund (EEP Africa) is a clean energy financing facility hosted and managed by the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) with funding from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, NDF, Norway and Switzerland. EEP Africa provides risk tolerant early-stage grant financing for locally driven innovative clean energy projects and businesses in Southern and Eastern Africa. Project financing is supplemented by technical support, investment facilitation and knowledge sharing.