Raising capital for renewable
energy in South Africa
Wakile Energy
Wakile Energy is one of our most exciting partnerships to date. It is a South African engineering consulting and asset management company, operating mainly in the renewable energy sector. Wakile Energy seeks to contribute towards a better future in economic development and environmental sustainability. Its objective is to bring transformation within the landscape of the energy industry by empowering more women to participate in technical and strategic leadership roles.
Wakile Energy was founded by 29-year-old Lolwethu Mxenge, a passionate entrepreneur who has extensive technical experience within the Wind, Solar, Biomass, Hydro and Geothermal energy industries.
The vision of Wakile Energy is to become a major role player in energy transformation in Africa. The focus of the company is on socio-economic transformation, technology acquisition and development, sustainable energy production and integrated sustainable energy. Wakile Energy aims to make an impact not only on Africa, but also globally.
thinklink and Wakile Energy entered into a partnership in November 2021. This partnership is important on thinklink as its drives one of our current focuses, Sustainable Development Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. We know that non-renewable energy is the main contributor to climate change, as it produces around 60 percent of greenhouse gases. More efficient energy standards could reduce building and industry electricity consumption by 14 percent.
We believe that investing in solar, wind and thermal power, improving energy productivity and ensuring energy are vital if we are to achieve SDG 7 by 2030. By expanding infrastructure and upgrading technology, we can enable clean and more efficient energy in all countries. This in turn will encourage social and economic growth and aid in the protection of the natural environment.
thinklink’s role in this partnership is to focus on raising capital through various financing options that would support Wakile Energy to enter the market as a vital stakeholder. We have set ourselves a target of R26million of start-up costs to establish Wakile Energy as a female owned Independent Power Provider, this to be achieved by December 2022. thinklink’s approach to strategy and partnership mapping is co-creation: by marrying the technical knowledge of Wakile Energy and thinklink’s ability to attract investment partners, we have created a strategy to guide us in the growth of this significant venture.
