Orange and ENGIE have entered a partnership to optimise the supply of electricity to Orange’s telecommunication towers in Africa
ENGIE will bring its expertise from its international experience in the energy sector to help Orange with with its ongoing project to optimise the power supply to its technical infrastructure in Africa. Orange’s objectives are to pursue a stable and secure power supply programme, reduce its energy footprint and contain costs despite rapidly growing energy requirements. Towards those ends, ENGIE will offer its expertise to improve Orange’s energy efficiency across its operations in the continent.
The partnership agreement was signed between Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange and Isabelle Kocher, deputy CEO and COO of ENGIE. They also signed another partnership agreement that covers the expansion of the rural electricity grid in Africa. Orange is keen to participate in the challenge to expand the electricity grid in Africa and encourage responsible power consumption on the continent based on the expertise of ENGIE.
Based on Orange’s expertise as a telecommunications carrier and ENGIE’s experience in renewable energy production, aggregation and maintenance, the two groups will trial a range of domestic power supply solutions for rural populations that could then be marketed by Orange. These solutions could, for instance, include individual solar kits and small-scale, local electricity networks. The service could then be billed to users via mobile phones using Orange Money.
The trials will allow the companies to validate the technical solutions, the sales and distribution models, and the economic feasibility of the service before making it available on a larger scale.
ENGIE currently supplies 760 MW of power in Africa, while Orange has operations in 17 countries across Africa, as of now.
