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| Patrick Ngowi |
Patrick Ngowi showed the signs of entrepreneurship early in life. From
supplying mobile call credit to local vendors, he became an importer and
dealer in cheap mobile phones which he mostly sold to poor rural people.
Noticing that many of his customers had no electricity to charge their phone
batteries, Patrick saw the goldmine in solar energy. A few years after
studying renewable energy, this young man built a million-dollar fortune in
solar energy – one of Africa’s most lucrative but unexplored opportunities.
Today, he is one of the leaders in a virgin industry with a bright future. This
article explores the inspiring and impressive story of this young man
including several things you can learn from his remarkable achievement.
At just age 15, and still a student in secondary school,
Patrick Ngowi ventured into the mobile phone business
selling call cards (recharge vouchers) which he noticed
were scarce in the area. By the time he turned 18, he was
fully into the mobile phone trade selling cheap handsets
which he bought from Hong Kong. This business, which
he started with a $1,800 loan from his mom and a free air
travel ticket from a close friend, turned out to be very
profitable. By targeting the mass market of poor rural
people who could only afford basic and cheap phones,
Patrick sold more than 5,000 handsets (at an average
price of $20) in one year alone!
During his short stint in the mobile phone business, Patrick noticed that
many of his customers did not have access to electricity and getting their
phone batteries charged was a serious problem. This problem provided the
inspiration that opened his eyes to the huge potentials of solar power and the
lucrative opportunities it holds in Africa’s future. To prepare himself for
this future, Patrick went ahead to learn about the subject of solar energy in
order build the solid technical knowledge he needed to succeed in the solar
power business he would soon start.
At age 19, Patrick Ngowi had saved enough money to enroll in Dezhou
University, China where he studied renewable and alternative energy (with
particular emphasis on solar power). He returned to Tanzania after his
studies to start Helvetic Solar Contractors, a company that has now installed
more than 6,000 small rooftop solar systems in his country and four other
East African countries – Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Many of
these systems are installed in the same communities he sold his mobile
phones (which had no access to the electric power grid).
The success of his company – whose revenues are expected to exceed $7
million by the end of 2013 – proves that Africa’s market and demand for
solar energy is indeed lucrative. This astounding success has also attracted a
lot of media attention Patrick’s way. In early 2013, he was featured by
Forbes as one of the 10 Young African Millionaires to watch in 2013. His
company was also ranked at the top of KPMG’s East Africa’s Survey of Top
100 Mid-Sized Companies in Tanzania in 2012.
Although renewable energy (like solar) makes up about 1 percent of
Tanzania’s electricity sources, Patrick’s company already boasts of high
profile clients like the United Nations, the Tanzanian government, World
Vision and the Tanzanian Army. To date, Helvetic Solar Contractors has
installed more than 2,000 solar water heating systems in government
institutions and several UN projects including schools, hospitals and hotels.
This is in addition to several solar power contracts the company is executing
in other East African countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.
Apart from his remarkable entrepreneurial achievements, Patrick is a
passionate environmentalist and a passionate philanthropist. Through his
Light for Light (L4L) Foundation, his company offers Helvetic Solar kits
that provide rural households with basic lighting and power to charge
mobile phone batteries – a project he partly funds from his personal gross
annual salary.
According to a recent interview with the African Business Journal, Patrick
considers his greatest achievement to be his ability to provide much needed
employment for his fellow citizens, and at the same time, light up some
rural parts of Tanzania with solar power - as well as contributing towards
Tanzania’s advance in renewable energy.
As huge as Patrick’s accomplishments with solar power may sound, we have
barely scratched the surface of what is possible with solar energy in Africa.
Of all the other alternative and renewable sources of energy available for
Africa’s future – wind, sun and water – the sun (solar power) is the most
abundant and free! Do you know that Africa receives the longest supply of
bright sunlight than any other part of the world? Roughly 75 percent of
Africa sits on the earth’s equator and gets an average of 325 days of sunlight
every year! Solar power is one of Africa’s most abundant but underexploited
resources!
Despite its huge solar potential and the capacity to generate electricity that
could satisfy the continent’s power needs, about less than 20 percent of
Africans have access to electricity. The proportion is less than 5 percent in
many of the continent’s rural areas. To give you a chilling perspective, all
the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (with a combined population of about
750 million) generates roughly as much electricity as Spain (a country with
less than 50 million people)!
A fast-growing population, economic growth and the popularity of mobile
phones (used by both rich and poor) across the continent is accelerating
demand for electricity in Africa. The efforts by governments to get more
people on the power grid can barely cope with the exploding demand. Some
rural areas are just too remote that it could take another decade to get them
on the electricity grid. With rising fuel costs and a growing concern about
climate change (and a need to use cleaner, greener and renewable energy),
the profile of solar power is gaining momentum across the world!
With the price of solar panels and equipment falling across the world, solar
power is finally coming within reach of Africa’s poor and not-so-poor
people. Seeing the possibility of using solar power as the fastest way to
bring electricity to the remotest parts of our continent, several governments,
local and international NGOs, and a handful of private companies are
jumping on the solar wagon. We estimate that solar energy will become a
trillion-dollar market in the coming decades!
Smallstarter
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