ZOLA Electric: bringing solar to the masses

Making solar power accessible

Xavier Helgesen founded ZOLA Electric with 2 colleagues in Tanzania in 2012 with the vision of making solar power accessible and affordable to the African market. There are currently about 150 million homes in Africa without electricity, and many of them rely on dangerous and toxic kerosene for their lighting needs. ZOLA Electric is working to change that: its plug-and-play solar system eliminates the need for fixed subscriptions, meters and wiring, and takes advantage of the fact that more people in Africa have mobile phones than access to electricity.

ZOLA Electric’s mobile micropayment platform allows customers to purchase tiny amounts of solar energy as needed: enough to power the lights, or charge a phone or television. Users can pay as they go for solar power even without a credit card or bank account – the same way they might top up their phone minutes – for less than what they were spending on kerosene. Helgesen describes the mission of the company: “The idea was to take all the risk out of adopting solar for people without electricity. We want to mass market solar so that it is as common as Coca-Cola.”

Headquarters in Amsterdam

With a head office in Amsterdam, the company has also opened a San Francisco office and continues to grow rapidly. They now provide electricity to more than a million households (about 500,000 people) in Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda and the Ivory Coast. 

“As we grew, we found it very important to have a group head office location from which we could easily access countries in East and West Africa,” says Helgesen.

The Amsterdam office fulfils the functions that are not done in the individual country offices, housing the heads of commercial, human resources and accounting. As CEO, Helgesen is also be based in the Dutch capital. “I got an apartment on a canal. I’m very happy to be here.”

ZOLA Electric's decision to come to Amsterdam came down to connections. The team often travelled through Amsterdam en route to Africa from San Francisco. “KLM has long been main connection to Tanzania. You can fly one-stop to Kilimanjaro Airport from San Francisco.”

How the Netherlands helps newcomers

There were many possible locations in the running. “Amsterdam was a favourite, but we also looked at African centres like Nairobi, Kigali and Dakar. And we looked at Dubai, London, Paris and even a few US cities. The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency and amsterdam inbusiness helped to make the case for Amsterdam. Their people in San Francisco came over the very next day after we called. They were very helpful; they walked us through all of the available support, as well as the competitive tax climate for internationals.”

The supple Dutch immigration laws played a role as well. “Immigration was probably the most important factor for us because we were bringing in people from all over the world: for example a South African head of HR, an Indian head of commercial, and a number of Americans. So we needed a quick immigration process that recognises that business today is inherently global.”