Modern Cooking Facility for Africa (MFCA) has announced that it has signed an agreement with its first cohort of investee companies in Zambia. ENGIE Energy Access Zambia Ltd will scale up access to innovative biodigester technology to address the challenges of poverty, food insecurity, and climate change facing farmers in peri-urban and rural areas in the country.
ENGIE Energy Access Zambia Ltd, part of global energy major ENGIE S.A. has been operating in Zambia since 2017 with a focus on delivering off-grid solar home systems.
The company has established a consortium with Sistema.bio, which manufactures high-quality biodigesters. The biogas kit includes a hybrid reactor, a stove, a burner, and all the accessories necessary for farmers to begin utilizing biogas within weeks of installation.
ENGIE Energy Access Zambia will provide its customers with innovative biodigesters that enable farmers to convert organic waste into biogas that can be used for clean cooking and thermal processes to meet household needs and a biofertilizer that can replace chemical alternatives, through a PAYGO business model.
We are really excited to continue our cooperation with ENGIE Energy Access Zambia through MCFA to support the company to scale up its activities related to clean cooking and accelerating the development of a clean cooking market with advanced products in Zambia, commented Kari Hämekoski, Senior Programme Manager at Nefco.
Results-based financing
With the EUR 1.2 million in results-based financing provided by MCFA, the company aims to engage in the clean cooking sector by selling some 2,400 biogas stoves together with biodigesters.
The financial support provided will mobilize minimal additional co-financing, doubling the total available funding by the end of project implementation in 2027.
The project is expected to provide access to clean cooking solutions for some 12,000 Zambians by the end of 2027.
By leveraging ENGIE Energy Access Zambia’s extensive reach and Sistema.bio’s adaptable product range, we aim to bring about substantial benefits and promote sustainable practices to off-grid communities in Zambia, said Helen Zulu, Interim Country Director of ENGIE Energy Access Zambia, at an event in Lusaka.
First private company contracts
The other two investees financed by MCFA in Zambia are BURN and Emerging Cooking Solutions (ECS).
BURN is providing electric cookers in several Sub-Saharan African countries and ECS is a local Zambian company offering micro-gasification stoves together with its SupaMoto biomass pellets.
Together, these companies will provide over 110,000 clean cooking services, which will provide access to clean cooking solutions for over 550,000 Zambians by the end of 2027.
An event in Lusaka held on January 17, 2024, celebrated the contracting of the first private companies in Zambia to support access to clean, modern, and affordable cooking solutions, a new and innovative aspect of the European Union (EU), and Sweden’s partnership with the Government of Zambia.
The contributions of the European Union and Sweden to the Zambia programme amount to EUR 12.5 million and EUR 6.7 million respectively.
By supporting the Modern Cooking Facility for Africa, we prepare the ground for the future scale-up and provision of clean cooking solutions for thousands of Zambians. The benefits are many – from improving health outcomes, especially for women, to reducing pollution and saving forests, said H.E. Karolina Stasiak, Ambassador of the European Union to Zambia and COMESA.
Team Europe is making a substantial impact in Zambia through the Global Gateway initiative, focusing on sustainable infrastructure to bolster the nation’s economic growth and environmental sustainability, particularly in the clean energy sector.
MCFA is an innovative results-based financing programme exclusively financing higher-tier clean cooking solutions. It is very positive to see that the first companies contracted are already having a huge impact when it comes to supporting a green and just energy transition in Zambia as well as demonstrating the business case for other Sub-Saharan African countries, commented H.E. Johan Hallenborg, Ambassador of Sweden to Zambia and COMESA.
