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University of Cape Town: UCT graduates take home over R4.5m in Motsepe-backed prize

Omnivat, a renewable energy startup founded by five University of Cape Town (UCT) graduates, are the runners-up of a prestigious energy innovation competition backed by billionaire Patrice Motsepe.

With a cash prize of $250 000 (R4.6 million), they set out to explore partnerships with healthcare facilities in the Eastern Cape as pilot sites for their project – essentially a power system consisting of solar panels, batteries, and hydrogen, pre-packaged in a shipping container. The innovative design creates a shaded marketplace that provides reliable power to users, even when the sun isn’t shining, News24 previously reported.

 

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Africa’s Green Economy Summit: Milken-Motsepe Green Energy Prize Winner: “Aftrak Solves Economic and Green Energy Challenges and Produces A Zero Carbon Energy Solution Accessible To Nearly Everyone”

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JONATHAN WILSON, AFTRAK PROJECT LEAD, THE WINNERS OF THIS YEAR’S MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE OF $1-MILLION. HE IS ALSO A LECTURER IN SYSTEMS AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AT LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY. AFTRAK IS A GROUNDBREAKING INITIATIVE THAT COMBINES SOLAR MICROGRIDS AND TAILORED TRACTORS TO EMPOWER SMALLHOLDER FARMERS ACROSS AFRICA. IT AIMS TO SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE CROP YIELDS AND SMALLHOLDER INCOMES WHILE PROVIDING ACCESS TO CLEAN, GREEN ELECTRICITY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES. CONGRATULATIONS ON WINNING THE MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE! CAN YOU SHARE A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOUR INNOVATION AND ITS IMPACT ON EXPANDING ACCESS TO SUSTAINABLE ELECTRICITY IN AFRICA? We’re obviously thrilled to bits to win the Milken-Motsepe Prize for Green Energy. Our innovation is around a socio-economic solution to both energy access, but also agriculture and food scarcity. So, we have a system that comprises of three main parts. The first one is a microgrid, and we put loads of work into this microgrid.

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Africa’s Green Economy Summit: Milken-Motsepe Green Energy Prize Runner-Up: “Omnivat’s ecosystem of solutions tackles an ecosystem of challenges typically found in Sub-Saharan Africa

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH RANDY KABUYA, ENGINEER AND CO-FOUNDER OF OMNIVAT, THE RUNNERS-UP IN THIS YEAR’S MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE. THE COMPANY WON $250,000 FOR ITS CONTAINERISED ELECTRICITY GENERATION AND STORAGE SYSTEM, WHICH PROVIDES CLEAN WATER, CLEAN ENERGY, AND WI-FI-ENRICHED BY VIRTUAL REALITY SUPPORT FOR REMOTE COMMUNITIES. CONGRATS ON BEING THE RUNNERS-UP IN THE MILKEN-MOTSEPE GREEN ENERGY PRIZE! CAN YOU SHARE A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOUR INNOVATION AND ITS IMPACT ON EXPANDING ACCESS TO SUSTAINABLE ELECTRICITY IN AFRICA? For myself and 1.2 billion people, sub-Saharan Africa is a place that we call home. But sadly though, half that number here don’t have access to electricity, while the other half have to contend with frequent power cuts. These are businesses and residents. So essentially what you see is that the centralised electricity supply and generation system either does not work or is unreliable for those that it’s actually serving, or it simply is unfeasible for those

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Engineering News: Award-winning Omnivat to roll out pilots of containerised electricity generation and storage system

Renewable energy technology company Omnivat Tech, the creator of an award-winning containerised electricity generation and storage system, aims to deploy three in-field pilot plants in the coming months. The company intends to trial different use cases, including health facility support, backup power and community-owned models. “We are a pan-African team with a pan-African vision. We will deploy our initial systems in South Africa and will be developing a pipeline across sub-Saharan Africa. We are open to public- and private-sector customers and intend to collaborate with both to meet the needs of communities, facilities and businesses,” says Omnivat.   Read the full article here

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