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Mali

Our country subsidiary AGT Mali was founded in August 2017. Its headquarters is located in the capital Bamako.

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Our country subsidiary AGT Niger was founded in August 2016. Its headquarter is in the capital Niamey.

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Our country subsidiary AGT Senegal was founded in January 2021. Its headquarter is located in the capital, Dakar.

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Home ImpactBlog #VillageStory Amaloul

#VillageStory Amaloul – Our First ImpactSite in Niger

Jörg
August 14, 2020

The story of the first pilot project in Niger begins in March 2017 with an invitation from Minister of State Ouhoumodou. Together with our co-founders Andreas Rohardt and Biba Nainou Dogo, we visit Ouhoumodou's birthplace Amaloul Nomade in the Tahoua region in the center of Niger. The journey takes us through the Sahara, along the border with Mali. When we arrived in the village, we were surrounded by enthusiastic people eagerly waiting for electricity.

Pilot Project ("1000 Villages") With the Government of Niger

At the time, Amaloul was an important pilot project for the government of Niger. Africa GreenTec was to become a strategic partner for the electrification of the least developed country in the world at the time. However, there were no plans or ideas on how to promote the electrification of rural areas. Africa GreenTec planned to implement a holistic project based on the experience gained in Mali. Amaloul was ideal for the pilot project as it is located quite far away from the capital Niamey and the national power grid and has a suitable population (6,000 - 7,000 people).

Cooperation with the Second German Television (ZDF)

Back in Germany, ZDF also got in touch. The political situation in Germany was very tense at the time, as we were in the middle of the so-called "refugee crisis". Every day, we saw images on television of people making their way to Europe in the hope of a better life, often losing their lives in the Mediterranean. Solutions were being sought. We had recently won the environmental prize as a team. There was an editor from ZDF on the jury who knew that we were currently active in Niger. As the region in which we were planning our pilot project is the hub of the refugee routes in sub-Saharan Africa and ZDF had already planned a documentary about the smuggling routes in this region, he was very interested in a second documentary about our work.

The trip with ZDF was already planned for September. This meant that the entire project planning, production and logistics had to be implemented within 5 months. This was a major challenge for the entire team, as only a first prototype had been built in Mali up to that point. The dismantling and transportation of the Solartainer was filmed in Hainburg in July and filming began in Amaloul in September. The footage was used to produce the ZDF documentary: the solar energy makers. At the end of the project, we could look back with pride, because we had achieved what we thought was impossible. True to the motto: WE DO. the first community in Niger was electrified with Solarstorm.

And How Do Things Look Today?

A few years later, the plant is still standing. We and the community are very satisfied with the progress made. In addition to many successes, unforeseeable challenges also arose time and again, as is so often the case. Amaloul is located in a region where people often have to contend with extreme weather events.

For this reason, we occasionally had technical problems with the radio connection in the ImpactSite smart meter system, as strong winds damaged one of our antennas. We were able to successfully repair the antenna and further develop the robustness of our technology. The signals from the smart meters were transmitted again without any problems and the electricity grid could be used without interruption. The team built a kind of radio tower to increase the transmission power in future.

The air conditioning system in the Solartainer was also adapted as part of the further development of our systems, as extreme temperatures prevail on the edge of the Sahara and our advanced cooling system can also prove effective here. In addition, hungry goats challenged the Africa GreenTec employees' ability to improvise. A wall had to be built so that the goats could no longer nibble on the cables. Due to the rainy season, whose torrential downpours can exert enormous forces, additional ditches were dug to allow the water to drain away.

These challenges were very important in order to learn for the following projects and to continuously develop ourselves and our team.