Image Credit: Mobile Power Ltd
The Company currently has two MOPO battery models, which were developed at its R&D facility in Sheffield, UK. The MOPO50 provides basic household energyfor lighting, phone charging and Direct Current (‘DC’) appliances; whilst the larger MOPOMax has two use cases, one as a battery swap for e-motorbike taxis and the other replaces small petrol generators (0-4 kVA).
The business is already operating successfully in Nigeria, DRC, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chad, and Uganda. Over 14 million battery rentals have been conducted to date, and 6 million rentals take place annually through the growing network of MOPO hubs and agents. Given the lack of infrastructure in the DRC, the Company anticipates that in the next 10 years its business model will benefit 8 million low-income individuals living with limited access to power.
The funding for the DRC, which will provide sustainable energy to +320,000 end users, was provided to MOPO’s 100% owned subsidiary MPDRC. BGFA is a multi-donor facility established and managed by Nefco, the Nordic Green Bank, which aims to bring clean and affordable energy to Sub-Saharan Africa. BGFA has, in total, contracted 25 companies in Burkina Faso, DRC, Liberia, Uganda, and Zambia, which cumulatively have the potential to reach up to 8.6 million people.
MOPO CEO Chris Longbottom said, “Having successfully applied BGFA’s initial investment to grow our renewable energy focussed battery rental business in Liberia, we are delighted to gain further support to develop operations in the DRC. We have a unique business model whereby solar powered hubs charge our proprietary MOPO batteries, which are then rented to customers to sustainably power their lives. We have already conducted 14 million MOPO battery rentals in our current countries of operation across Sub-Saharan Africa and look forward to building our services with BGFA and transforming power access to hundreds of thousands of people.
“Whilst the DRC represents a vast opportunity, our aggressive expansion strategy doesn’t stop there but includes both product development and scaling up roll out across Africa. With the right funding in place, we can leverage our leading position in Africa to accelerate universal energy access. To this end, we are talking to multiple partners and look forward to concluding further financing to aggregate our successful model.”
Kari Hämekoski, Senior Programme Manager at Nefco, said: “We are pleased that previous BGFA investees, such as Mobile Power, see an opportunity to unlock further investments and expand to other BGFA-supported countries. The core purpose of BGFA is to mobilise private financing and speed up access to modern, clean, and affordable energy.”