The United Kingdom (UK) based oil and gas company B.B Energy (BBE) has acquired Solarcentury Africa, which is a subsidiary of Solarcentury, another UK-based company. Solarcentury Africa’s assets will now be part of BBE Renewables, BBE’s subsidiary. The African business will continue to trade as Solarcentury Africa for a transitional period.
Solarcentury, through its local subsidiary Solarcentury Africa, provides solar power to commercial and industrial consumers in Africa as well as entities in the mining sector. So far, Solarcentury has an installed capacity of 2.1 GW in Africa.
Solarcentury Africa is expected to contribute a comprehensive set of in-house technical expertise and experience in growing solar and battery sector. The company has been installing solar power systems with battery storage systems in Africa. The projects set up by Solarcentury Africa include commissioning of two hybrid solar plants with a combined capacity of 2.25 MW for the state-owned Eritrea Electric Corporation. One of the plants, having a capacity of 1.25 MW, is located in Areza, a town in the Debub region in central Africa, while the second plant having a capacity of 1 MW is located in Maidma.
According to the Director at Solarcentury, the sale of Solarcentury’s African business will allow Solarcentury to focus on its core markets in concert with Statkraft. Norwegian hydropower player Statkraft acquired Solarcentury in November 2020. The latter claims to have brought to life 1.2 GWp of project capacity in seven countries since 2013. The 118 million-pound ($152 million) deal will hand the Norwegian state-owned utility six gigawatts of solar projects under development in Spain, the Netherlands, the U.K., France, Greece, Italy and Chile.