By Wallace Mawire
Solar companies and solar individuals have responded with great interest to the inaugural AFSIA Solar Awards competition, the African solar industry’s premier awards ceremony.
More than 130 entries have been received for this competition, coming from all corners of the continent.
Each application is currently under review and is being evaluated by an independent Jury composed of some of the best African and international experts in solar in Africa, including Eng. Lamya Abdel Hady, Head of Sector Private Projects at EETC in Egypt, Mr Saho, Acting Executive Director of ECREEE in Cape Verde and Mrs Jasandra Nyker, Managing Director of Denham Capital in South Africa to cite a few.
Fifteen categories are in competition this year, with some of them receiving a very high level of interest. Not surprisingly, the most competitive categories this year include “C&I Project of the Year” and “Mini-Grid Project of the Year”, which is reflective of the increased activity of both of these segments of the African solar industry. “Woman in Solar of the Year” has also been particularly popular among participants. This highlights the very positive trend of the growing involvement of women in the solar industry across the continent.
The awards ceremony is organized in collaboration with the AEF (Africa Energy Forum) and will be conducted online on October 29th, 2020.
This year and given exceptional circumstances, AEF is joining forces with the African Utility Week & POWERGEN Africa plus Oil & Gas Council’s Africa Assembly this October to host a ‘Digital Africa Energy Festival’ – the largest ever energy event for the African continent.
AFSIA Solar Awards is delighted to be hosted by this much respected programme and to unveil the winners during a digital ceremony on October 29th.
The event promises to be a great show celebrating exceptional achievement in the solar industry and will host several African stars to personally award the prizes.
Several leaders of the global industry such as Huawei, Trina Solar and Jinko Solar are also providing their support to make this a truly exceptional event.
Africa is characterized by the wide and rich diversity of solar projects and applications. Contrarily to other regions, we find all kinds of solar applications in Africa ranging from large-scale solar parks to solar home systems, from grid-connected residential systems to off-grid hospitals and schools, from basic PV systems to solar-powered applications such as street lighting, solar irrigation, refrigeration or cook stoves to name a few.
The AFSIA Solar Awards 2020 will see companies and individuals battle it out to win the title in 15 different categories:
- Utility Scale Solar Project of the Year
- C&I Solar Project of the Year
- Mini-grid Solar Project of the Year
- SHS Solar Project of the Year
- Residential Solar Project of the Year
- African Solar Company of the Year
- African solar entrepreneur/SME of the year
- Financial Advisor / Consultant of the Year
- Legal Advisor / Consultant of the Year
- Technical Consultant of the Year
- DFI of the Year
- Woman in solar of the Year
- Solar Innovation of the Year
- Solar Picture of the Year
- Solar Video of the Year
Applications to the AFSIA Solar Awards will be evaluated by some of the most experienced professionals of the African solar industry. These experts will review every application independently and will select the best ones in each category.
This year the jury will be composed of Eng. Lamya Abdel Hady, Head of Sector Private Projects, EETC (Egypt), Bah F.M. Saho, Executive Director, ECREEE (Cape Verde), Jo Dean, Board Member, SAPVIA (South Africa), Jasandra Nyker Managing Director, Denham Capital (South Africa), Aaron Leopold, CEO, AMDA – Africa Minigrid Developers Association (Kenya), Linda Munyengeterwa, Regional Industry Director for Infrastructure, IFC (South Africa), Izael Da Silva, PhD, Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Research and Innovation Department, Strathmore University (Kenya) and Simon Gosling, Managing Director, EnergyNet (UK).
