The Chairman of Africell Group has disclosed the urgent need for reliable, efficient and affordable power supply.

“As a company that is serving millions of customers in Sierra Leone and in other African countries, we need a power supply that is reliable, efficient and affordable,” he said, pointing out that sustainability is important to Africell.

Mr Ziad Dalloul last Wednesday 4 January 2023 made the call at the symbolic launching of Africell Impact Foundation’s ‘Klin’ Energy project at a well attended occasion, hosted at the company’s headquarters at 1 Pivot Street, Wilberforce in Freetown.

The innovative renewable energy drive which comes along with fully equipped solar farm and a fleet of rechargeable electric tricycles, brought together stakeholders from the Ministry of Energy, the United Nations Development Programme, the Municipality Management of the Freetown City Council, among others, who registered their firmest and collective commitments towards the promotion of clean and green energy in Sierra Leone.

Reaffirming Africell SL’s commitments towards sustaining clean energy, Africell Group Chairman Mr Ziad Dalloul said the announcement of the launch of the ‘Klin’ Energy project by Africell SL marked the start of a long journey.

Mr Dalloul expressed optimism of unveiling of more ambitious renewable energy projects by his company.

He underscored the significance of solar energy in Africa which Sierra Leone stands huge potentials to take the lead in, by way of harnessing the sun to propel development, economic progress and improve the living standards of everyone in the country.

The Group Chairman said the ‘Klin’ Energy project marks an important step towards Africell SL’s goal of being more sustainable, adding that the success of the initiative will hopefully inspire others to move to cleaner energy.

He said: “As a good corporate citizen we also want to make our business clean and green. I believe that telecommunications should be part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem.”

Welcoming all to the new ground discovered by the Africell Impact Foundation, the Managing Director of Africell SL, Mr Shadi Gerjawi, said they decided on the naming ‘Klin’ Energy because climate change poses one of the greatest challenges on the planet. He therefore called for active solution to preserve the planet and future generation.

“We have taken the lead to be the first to invest and implement renewable energy solutions in our operations. This will effectively mean our company will progressively transition to a cleaner, more sustainable energy,” said Africell SL MD. Mr Gerjawi informed that Africell SL offices have been powered by sustainable solar energy for well over interrupted six months.

He disclosed that the venue of the launch of the Africell SL ‘Klin’ Energy project produces a total of 527 solar panels, each producing 437 watts at inverters of 60 watts capacity each, producing 344,668 kilowatts of solar energy every year.

“This,” he explained, “means that in environmental impact terms is that our carbon footprint is significantly reduced by up to 227,668kg yearly, saving approximately 9,000 trees every single year. I am excited to announce that we have also progressively converted energy solutions in some of our sites as part of this transformative initiative.” Mr Gerjawi said 82 sites have already been transformed into hybrids.

“We have potentially reduced CO2 emissions in 500 tons, which translates to 20,000 further trees saved annually,” he informed, adding that Africell SL does not only focus on powering its building and sites, but has also gone one step further by introducing the first-ever fleet of electrical sales conveyances.

Mr Gerjawi said the tricycles / kekes driven by Africell SL’s female team of riders are powered by electricity charged through a dedicated solar charging station. He told the occasion that each sales keke reaches full power within six hours and can operate for up to 12 hours without the need to recharge. “Our aim is to have charge stations at various strategic locations as the fleet increase,” proposed Mr Gerjawi.

“Our 2023 commitment is that a further 203 more  sites will be converted into hybrid energy, reducing our reliance on fuel and contributing to cleaner cities, healthier communities, sustainable energy and financial savings to our business in the long run”,  he said, recalling that in 2022 Africell SL save 9,000 trees.”

He pledged his company’s commitment towards rolling out more hybrid and solar powered sites. “We will save around 50,000 trees by preventing the emission of approximately 1250 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere,” he vowed.

The UNDP Resident Representative, Tanzila Sankoh, said as Africell SL launched the ‘Klin’ Energy project there are more than 1.1 billion people who remain without access to electricity. She urges people to request for dangerous energy sources, saying 2.9 million people still rely on solid fuel for cooking and heating, which leads to high level of pollutions that cause severe health problems and environmental degradations.

Madam Sankoh said the UNDP is working hard to provide decentralized energy sources, through the use of mini-grids and off-grids options as well as support to the risk of investments, thereby creating an environment for private sector investment. She added that the UNDP also works to enhance access to energy by communities through thermal biomass, biogas for cooking heating and lighting. She said that the UNDP launched an energy project in 2020 which Sierra Leone benefited.

Madam Sankoh encouraged all to scale up efforts in mitigating climate change by enforcing clean energy policy.

The Mayor of Freetown City Council, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, dilated on efforts by the FCC in the areas of tree planting, flood mitigation among others under the Transform Freetown initiative.

Statements were also made by the Minister of Information and Communications, Mohamed Rahman Swaray, Minister of Energy, Alhaji Kanja Sesay, and Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Prof. Foday Moriba Jaward, all commending Africell SL for the wonderful renewable energy initiative.