In this role, Carol will expand the Alliance’s presence in Africa, strengthening its reach in blended finance mechanisms to make GEAPP a clean energy superpower across the continent.

Carol brings over 20 years of experience in energy access, private-sector transformation, and regional leadership across Africa.

She most recently served as Strategy Director for Sustainability and Thought Leadership at Schneider Electric, where she helped shape the company’s global sustainability initiatives and led programs to expand energy access to more than 50 million people worldwide.

Prior to that, Carol was Schneider Electric’s Country President for East Africa, where she expanded operations across the region, forged partnerships with government and industry, and drove inclusive, sustainable business growth. She has also held senior leadership roles at General Electric and Unilever.

“Carol’s appointment marks a powerful step forward for GEAPP’s work in Africa,” said GEAPP CEO Woochong Um. “She brings a deep understanding of Africa’s energy landscape, a passion for equity and access, and the proven ability to lead through complexity. Her leadership will be central to our alliance of partners delivering on the promise of Mission 300, building multi-stakeholder networks and relationships with key stakeholders, businesses and entrepreneurs – ultimately delivering results that transform lives and economies.”

“I’m honored to join GEAPP and lead this next chapter of impact across Africa,” said Carol Koech. “Access to clean, reliable energy is the foundation of inclusive economic growth. I look forward to working with GEAPP’s strong alliance of partners to implement bold, country-led strategies like Mission 300, empowering communities through job creation and enterprise growth, supporting governments to implement a just transition, and unlocking green growth across the continent.”

With over 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa still lacking access to electricity, Carol joins GEAPP at a pivotal moment as the organization scales its efforts to tackle this urgent challenge through transformative initiatives like Mission 300.

This is a public-private-philanthropic ambition led by the World Bank and the African Development Bank with support from GEAPP, the Rockefeller Foundation, SEforALL, and more partners to connect 300 million people to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030 while also driving economic growth and job creation.

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The Global Leadership Council (GLC) of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) recently convened on the sidelines of UNGA 78 to review progress against its two signature initiatives: first, to mobilize 5 GW of accelerated commitments to Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS); and second, to enable large-scale aggregation in the distributed renewable energy (DRE) sector, with the near-term target of securing a $500 million pooled procurement order by end 2024.

These are crucial steps to unlock an estimated 90 GW market for BESS in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean and lowering the average price of DRE power from more than $0.5/kWh in most contexts today, to below $.25/kWh within five years.

Together, these initiatives have the potential to transform the pace at which energy poverty can be alleviated.

Currently, global power systems are not serving the people who most desperately need energy; 3.6 billion people still live in energy poverty today, and of those, 760 million have no electricity and 2.8 billion have costly, unreliable access.

“The GLC is working together to tackle the barriers to renewable energy adoption in low-and-middle-income countries, said GLC Co-Chair, Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Norway. “We need a more ambitious and inclusive renewable energy agenda globally, and to deliver this it is critical to find partners, secure funding from new sources and encourage creativity.”

The Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) Consortium is a multi-stakeholder partnership set up to galvanize a transformation of energy systems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean via expanded deployment of battery energy storage. The objectives of the Consortium are to:

–        Secure 5 GW of BESS commitments by the end of 2024

–        Mobilize more than $4 billion in grant, concessional, and commercial finance to accelerate project deployment

–        Unlock the 90 GW deployment needed by the end of this decade to enable 400 GW of renewable energy that avoids a gigaton of carbon dioxide emissions

The Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) Scale-Up Initiative focuses on enabling collective action to unleash the market potential in developing countries, bringing affordable and reliable power to nearly half a billion people who remain unserved by traditional electricity grids. The objectives of the initiative are to:

–        Develop a 500 MW pipeline of procurement in three to four key markets by Q4 2024

–        Enable order volumes for DRE technologies totaling $500 million by Q4 2024

“As GEAPP approaches its second birthday, the GLC provides a critical role in delivering scale, urgency, and connectivity to our initiatives,” said Simon Harford, CEO of GEAPP. “Whether that’s GEAPP facilitating the first wave of BESS in India, or our investment in the private sector development of solar metro grids in eastern DRC, the GLC champions our efforts and amplifies our reach as the climate emergency continues to take hold.”

“Renewable energy is out of reach for too many people. Extending access to affordable and stable clean energy is a crucial component of our climate solution,” said Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank. “The World Bank supports the efforts of GEAPP’s Global Leadership Council to address these challenges, and we must continue to move with even more urgency and scale.”

“Tackling the existential threat of climate change requires urgent and bold leadership. That is why I am energized by the GLC’s mission and ability to connect leaders across the globe,” said Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organization. “This work is helping to facilitate the just energy transition that the world needs, I encourage the GLC to continue on their path forward with even more urgency, scale, and action.’’

“Five months ago, the GLC made one of the world’s largest collective commitments to significantly reduce the cost of renewable energy technologies. We will mobilize 100 GWh of accelerated BESS by 2030, and today we are many steps closer to identifying the ‘first-mover’ countries who will spearhead this work. This is the kind of collaboration we must see more of,” said GLC Co-Chair, Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation.

“600 million Africans have no access to electricity. To close this gap, we need bolder approaches that work at scale and can reach hundreds of millions of people such as the Desert to Power Initiative”, said Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group. “In Africa, the cost of capital for utility-scale clean energy projects is at least two to three times higher than in advanced economies. Today, we discussed how the GLC can help overcome the political, technical, and financial barriers that lead to these asymmetries, and accelerate universal energy access.’’

The post GEAPP GLC Powers Ahead to Accelerate Affordable Clean Energy for All appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.