Thies, November 16, 2022
Six years ago, Lagazel launched its first solar lamp manufacturing workshop in Burkina Faso. After a first replication of the workshop in Benin in 2021, Lagazel is inaugurating its third workshop in Thiès, Senegal, this Wednesday, November 16, in partnership with the PROMESS Training, Application and Incubation Center for Renewable Energy Professions and under the sponsorship of the National Agency for the Promotion of Youth Employment. A pioneer in the local manufacture of quality solar equipments on the African continent, Lagazel’s model promotes job creation and local added value.
The company has now distributed 100,000 solar products in some 15 African countries. With only two references of solar lamps at the beginning, the company has not stopped innovating and today has a complete range of solar lamps for lighting and recharging cell phones, solar-home-systems for electrifying a household or a small business, solar bollards for outdoor lighting and collective charging solutions for community projects. The latest innovation, the Boumba USB station, allows 16 phones or tablets to be charged simultaneously using solar energy. What do all these products have in common? Made of metal, Lagazel products are robust, meet Verasol’s international quality standards and are durable thanks to the local after-sales service.
After Burkina Faso and Benin, Lagazel chose to set up its third local manufacturing unit in Senegal, prompted by market opportunities and constrained by the logistical and customs difficulties of supplying the country from its other West African workshops. Seven technicians and two supervisors have been trained in the manufacture of Lagazel products and the PROMESS Center has been equipped with a production line that will allow for the manufacture of 5,000 products per month. For this first year, about 50 collective charging stations and more than 2,000 solar lamps were manufactured.
Up to date, a large part of the collective charging stations of solar lamps are deployed in schools in the region of Saint-Louis by the NGO Le Partenariat which supports the implementation of energy innovations by micro-operators in connection with its partners in the region. The charging stations installed at the school allow students to access lighting to do their homework, while reinforcing the role of the school in the community through the collective charging system. “The innovative solution has been proven for several years, and we hope to benefit from the support of Senegalese institutions and stakeholders to deploy these locally manufactured solutions throughout the country. If conditions are favorable, Senegal could even become a production hub to supply neighboring countries such as Mauritania, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau,” explains Arnaud Chabanne, Founder of Lagazel.
Going against the grain of other players in the off-grid solar sector who concentrate production of solar products in Asia and distribute them in Africa via pay-as-you-go models, Lagazel promotes the creation of local added value upstream in the value chain. “Thanks to the industrial know-how of our three-generation French SME, we want to position Lagazel as a key player in industrialization in Africa. We want to put our workshops and our experience at the service of partners who wish to locate all or part of their production in Africa, whatever the sector: clean cooking, mobility, refrigeration, etc.”, continues Arnaud. In this respect, Lagazel is already supporting two structures in Mali and Haiti to set up local production lines for solar equipment. Activities have also been initiated to develop the assembly of lithium batteries from new and used cells, thus reducing the volume of waste from solar products.
For more information
Website: www.lagazel.com
Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQjtYbK343QvPibb5LvfkA
Key words
Made in Africa; solar energy; Africa; quality; solar lamps; solar kits; economic development; youth employment; Verasol; social entrepreneurship; green product; climate; rural electrification; local industrialization.
Press contact
| Centre PROMESS (Sénégal)
Welle SOCE +221 33 951 13 15 +221 77 523 68 61
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LAGAZEL (France)
Claire LE STER +33 (0)4 27 64 30 51 +33 (0)6 75 40 28 11 (whatsapp)
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