Dubai based Phanes Group on 1 November announced that Asis Energy Solutions’ 50MW Kitaka solar PV project has been selected as part of the company’s inaugural solar incubator initiative. Asis is led by Mozambican Marlon Dos Santos, who will now begin discussions for a partnership with Phanes Group to co-develop the project with a four day workshop in Dubai.
“We are proud and excited to announce Marlon Dos Santos as the recipient of our inaugural solar incubator programme”, Phanes Group chief executive Martin Haupts said. “It was a close match – all the finalists presented high-quality projects with the potential to transform their respective communities. Not only the corporate social responsibility (CSR) component of each proposal was the key factor in our evaluation but also the passion of Marlon to bring a project to life in a difficult market where the expertise and the training he will be receiving might be essential to help him succeed”.
The programme received applications from projects totalling more than 1GW across 15 African countries, with three eventually shortlisted, including projects from Côte d’Ivoire and Ethiopia. A spokesperson for Phanes Group told African Energy that Asis Energy Solutions was founded in 2016 by a group of Mozambican entrepreneurs. “They realised there was an under-supplied demand for clean and reliable energy in their country, and created on- and off-grid solutions to meet it. Their portfolio includes solar carports as well as small and large scale solar PV power plants for public and private entities”, the spokesperson said.
Dos Santos himself is the founder and general manager of the company who has lived in South Africa since 2009, graduating from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. A strong CSR element to the project was important to securing the panel’s – which comprised executives from Hogan Lovells, France’s Proparco, responsibility, Rina Consulting, and Solarplaza – approval. The project intends to benefit the local agricultural community.
