The new office in Johannesburg complements Vikram Solar's existing branches in Kenya and Uganda, and is aiming to increase the company's market presence and proximity to its customers throughout Africa. South Africa is currently the continent's largest photovoltaics market. The country's installed capacity is expected to rise to 8.5 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, which, according to estimates by Vikram Solar, will require investments exceeding $20bn.

Neil Bothwick, who has more than 12 years' experience in business development for the energy sector and previously held the position of sales director at South African event management company Spintelligent, is responsible for setting up Vikram Solar South Africa.

Growing demand

"The expansion of conventional power plant capacities is struggling to keep up with the rapidly growing demand for energy in Africa and, in particular, South Africa. This means that, in addition to being on the political agenda, the increased generation of renewable energy is essential to the energy industry and is set to continue. Our new office enables us to manage projects and take care of customers even more quickly and reliably as well as support colleagues working in our other African offices," states Bothwick.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that by 2040 the total capacity of renewable energy in Africa will reach 173GW, around 20% of which will be generated by solar energy. According to Solarbuzz, in the solar sector alone projects with a potential overall capacity of more than 11GW are currently ongoing in 29 African countries.

Commitment to continent

"The Vikram Group has been exporting to Africa for the last 30 years. The new office is a further indication of our commitment to this continent," Prashant Mathur, president of international sales of Vikram Solar, adds.

"Africa has a high potential for using renewable energy economically and especially stands to benefit from the distributed generation of energy. Our many years of experience in energy projects in India, where, like Africa, electricity needs to be reliably supplied in hot temperatures, is an additional asset that we are able to put to good use for our customers here as well."