Growing the Minigrid Footprint: Husk Doubles its Installed Fleet in Africa and Asia
Husk, an off-grid clean energy provider, announced last week that it completed 200 renewable-powered community minigrids in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia last year, doubling its fleet and achieving the industry’s fastest rate of deployment.
The company’s minigrids now serve more than 1.5 million people and over 30,000 small businesses in 400 communities across Nigeria and India.
Minigrids, sometimes referred to as remote microgrids, are typically built and operated in areas without access to a central electric grid. Minigrid systems use software to control distributed energy resources like solar panels and battery storage, providing remote communities with reliable, clean, and affordable power – they are thriving in Africa.
Husk’s minigrids include solar, battery energy storage and in some cases waste biomass gasification systems. Husk uses a mobile-enabled smart-metering system to sell renewable energy to the communities it serves under a ‘pay-as-you-go’ business model.
The minigrids are typically between 30kW and 50kW at commissioning; additional generation capacity can be added as demand grows.
With the completion of these new systems, the Husk fleet now includes 20 MW of solar power generation. It has also displaced nearly 3,000 diesel generators, avoiding an estimated 15,000 tons of carbon emissions each year, according to a company statement.
“This proves that, with the right policies, affordable and long-term capital and innovation, the industry is capable of scaling to the thousands per year that are needed to wipe out energy poverty in Africa and Asia,” said Manoj Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Husk. “We look forward to deepening our public-private partnership with governments and funders to work even faster to make ‘prosperity for all’ a reality.”
Energizing remote communities
Husk has been developing community minigrids at a blistering pace since it raised its first $20 million in equity in 2018. The Nigerian villages of Rukubi, Yelwa, Okpatta, Idadu, Igbabor, Sabon Gita, Kiguna, Akura, Gidan Buba and Fadama were among the first projects completed.
The company raised another $5 million in 2020 and closed a $103 million Series D funding round at the end of 2023.
Also in 2023, Husk announced it had proven its business model to be profitable, having achieved a positive EBITDA in both Nigeria and India. The earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) metric is commonly used to illustrate a company’s profitability.
In 2022, the company signed the UN Energy Compact and committed to building at least 5,000 minigrids by 2030, including 500 in Nigeria.
Husk has a 100 MW development pipeline planned for the coming years, according to a company statement. It has developed a containerized system to accelerate deployment and has plans to expand beyond Nigeria and India into at least one more African nation in the second half of the year.
