A Norwegian government-run climate fund has invested \u00a35m in a British green tech company providing affordable and reliable power supplies to millions of people living in Africa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sheffield-based MOPO, which provides sustainable energy supplies across several African nations, said it would use its Norfund investment to hire more people to accelerate the net-zero transition globally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Founded in 2013, MOPO has developed a rentable battery system that consumers and businesses in emerging countries pay for per use.<\/p>\n
Local agents run solar charging hubs that power this system, which has received support from Octopus Energy and British International Investment (BII).<\/p>\n
It comes in two variants \u2013 one for purposes like domestic lighting and phone charging and another for larger devices like power generators used by businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The University of Sheffield is another active partner in this technology, with its researchers helping to improve the system\u2019s performance, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.<\/p>\n
Chris Longbottom, CEO of MOPO, described Norfund\u2019s investment as \u201ca strong signal\u201d that its rental model and technology are viable. He added that the funding will enable the business to \u201cscale even faster to meet\u201d increasing demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far, MOPO\u2019s technology has been rented 28 million times in Nigeria, DRC, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chad and Uganda. And with this new investment, it\u2019s preparing for \u201crapid expansion\u201d in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n
Ibrahim Bangura, who lives in Sierra Leone, said renting MOPO\u2019s technology means he\u2019s not impacted by \u201cunreliable, expensive energy\u201d anymore and can access power whenever required.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe batteries are cheaper than petrol generators and we now have consistent, affordable power that runs my fridge, helps my children study after dark, and allows me to run my business more reliably.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Norwegian government-run climate fund has invested \u00a35m in a British green tech company providing affordable and reliable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[2740,748,393,4884,1620,3695,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-400103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-sheffield","13":"tag-sustainability","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115151980872441735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}