CFAO Kenya Invests in OFGEN; Enters Commercial and Industrial Solar Energy Market

The subsidiary of the Corporation for Africa and Overseas (CFAO) group, CFAO Kenya Limited, has announced an investment in the Nairobi-based commercial and industrial solar solutions provider OFGEN Limited. CFAO Kenya and OFGEN have had a long-standing partnership since 2018 which has solarized the group’s premises within Kenya and Uganda.

OFGEN has installed rooftop solar PV plants in six CFAO’s offices, four in Kenya and two in Uganda. The group will continue to leverage OFGEN’s expertise in C&I solar-powered system installation in its business premises within East Africa. This is in line with CFAO’s carbon neutrality program and its commitment to reducing 50% carbon emissions by 2030.

Dennis Awori, Chairman and Country Delegate of CFAO Kenya, highlighted OFGEN’s impressive projects pipeline that has made a strong addition to the group’s renewable energy portfolio. CFAO’s roadmap is to equip its remaining premises in over 10 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa with solar PV systems to reduce more than 1,000 tons of annual CO2 emissions by 2024.

Jibril Omar, the Founder and CEO of OFGEN, said, their investment meets OFGEN’s efforts to provide efficient and innovative clean energy solutions and support sustainable development in the region with an exciting new scale. The new investment will help them to utilize CFAO’s extensive footprint across Africa and expand into other solar markets on the continent.

OFGEN’s solar energy portfolio includes 24 PV plants totaling 6.2 MW and 9.3 MWh of battery storage capacity. It has operations in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Sudan, and is now targeting the Southern African energy market. This sector is moving away from fossil fuels, although the energy transition is very expensive in the current context.

OFGEN relies on other development partners, including the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to implement its expansion policy. A few months ago, UNEP awarded a grant to OFGEN under its ‘Clean Captive Installations for Industrial Clients in Sub-Sahara Africa’ (CCISA) program. This grant will help to set up a special purpose vehicle to raise local currency (Kenyan shilling) for the development of a solar PV system installation project for C&I clients, with an expected cumulative capacity of 14 MWp.