SolarQuarter Middle East Magazine got to interview Dr. Marcus Schumacher – Group CEO, Jubaili Bros and understood the unique and variety of services and products provided by the company. Dr. Marcus gave us insights into their expansion and growth plans for the coming year as well.
Please tell our readers about how did the journey of Jubaili Bros begin in the solar sector? How has the journey been so far?
Over the course of our journey, Jubaili Bros has provided more than 20GW in power solutions to our customers in more than 40 countries. The majority of our off-grid and backup power products provided to our served markets were based on diesel and gas-operated generator sets. However, global energy sustainability needs to be combined with the increased affordability of renewable technologies enabled by exponential cost-efficiency enhancements in solar and energy storage solutions had changed the way we are looking at technology options when it comes to serving our customers’ power requirements. In the end, our partners require the most reliable and cost-efficient power technology at the lowest CO2 footprint to serve the demanded load profile and it is up to power solution providers to find the most economical and reliable set-up. So far, we saw a lot of traction for our solar offerings in all our core regions across GCC, Africa, and Lebanon, particularly where policymakers have built the right regulatory frameworks around emission standards and long-term CO2 reduction requirements which our partners have to adhere to. The latest lack of availability of fossil fuels in some of our targeted markets combined with the hike in fuel cost gave our energy technology transformation program additional tailwind – over an above certainly the strong shift of people’s mindset globally to take a more responsible approach when it comes to controlling of global warming potential.
You are a named player in the Solar sector with a variety of offerings. Kindly tell us about your unique services.
Jubaili Bros Solar, as a privately owned business with over 45 years in the power generation sector, has thrived in its 360-degree customer view. Our global solar expert team focuses on key PV solar system components, PV – Diesel, Hybrid, and Micro-Grid solutions. That entails building local service capabilities and solution domain understanding as well as finished products stock keeping in strategic locations across all our core territories such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia in order to enable flawless project supplies. We offer engineering support in our local markets to validate our customer’s designs and reduce LCOE costs, identify and pass along opportunities to our EPC customers, referrals to available finance, and aftersales installation and commissioning support.
Could you please give us more details about the module mounting structures that you provide?
Jubaili Bros Solar is a worldwide partner of Lumax Energy mounting structure, which is the number 1 mounting structure in South Africa. The solution is an aluminum mounting structure that includes roof mount, ground mount, aluminum sheet, concrete, carports, and more.
Tell us about the Solar inverter products that you offer in partnership with Huawei.
Our partnership with Huawei started in early 2018 and grew organically to where we became a “Value Added Partner” to serve Sub-Saharan Africa and key countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. What our partnership entails amongst others is technical support, installation and commissioning assistance, and stock keeping of their residential, C&I, and utility-scale on-grid solutions, including inverters, batteries, and associated accessories. We directly serve our customer needs for all power requirements below 100MW in these countries or regions. We have accomplished the “Certified Service Provider” status, to where engineers are annually evaluated and examined to provide the same level of technical service as Huawei engineers. This certification requires us to provide after-sales support to our customers to include troubleshooting, site and remote support, warranty services, etc.
What updates/additions are you planning to your product/service portfolio in the year 2022?
We are executing on our strategy to expand our portfolio that can cater to both on-grid and off-grid markets to include hybrid solutions which we have been demonstrating in Africa for multiple locations for many years. This includes PV diesel and energy storage solutions. We see a great opportunity in solarizing systems where we already delivered generators to our established customer base, as well as growing our presence in countries with grid instability.
What can we look forward to from your company in your core and the solar sector in the next few years?
IoT and artificial intelligence are progressing in all areas of what we do and this does not stop in the technology segment we have established ourselves in for many years as a significant player. Connecting assets to the cloud enabling enhanced asset management and predicted service solution methodologies will be key to enhancing equipment life, health, and overall performance. Juibaili Bros already has made significant investments in this field and is about to launch several products around those solutions. In parallel, we are aggressively transforming our power solution programs towards more green solutions both in our core markets promoting natural gas-fired generators but also in the Hybrid and Microgrid space taking the opportunity of the steadily decreasing power storage cost at increasing operating life cycle performance. With access to increased disposable income in our emerging markets, we see a lot of demand for residential power solutions based on energy storage products. Taking all of this into consideration, our overall objective in the future will not change….We will provide power to people.
