“Given the power-supply inadequacies in Nigeria,” he says, “I used to be keenly desirous about how photo voltaic vitality may assist Nigeria resolve a few of its vitality challenges.”

He started researching how photo voltaic vitality know-how labored. Based mostly on what he realized, he and three classmates constructed a solar-powered 6-kilowatt minigrid that equipped energy to about 60 houses in a village. Minigrids use distributed off-grid vitality options that function independently from the nationwide transmission grid. Orajaka says his off-grid system of the primary of its form developed and carried out in Nigeria.

His workforce entered its “Venture Unfold the Mild: Present Electrical energy in a Small Settlement” within the 2009 IEEE Presidents’ Change the World Venture Competitors, which was for college students who had developed options to real-world issues. (The competitors is now not held.) On the time, Orajaka was an IEEE pupil member. The minigrid obtained the Excellent Pupil Humanitarian Prize of US $1,000.

“The assist from IEEE gave us validation, and that helped us to imagine in ourselves and the concepts we got here up with,” Orajaka says. “They’ve helped make sure that hundreds of thousands of Nigerians now have entry to high quality, dependable electrical energy due to that preliminary assist we obtained from the IEEE household.”

Profitable the competitors, he says, modified his life.

Increasing microgrids past the underserved

Throughout their closing semester in 2010, the scholars determined it was time to implement their thought, and so they turned to IEEE as soon as once more. They put collectively documentation on how the minigrid labored, created a funds, and utilized for a grant from the IEEE Basis.

“I nonetheless have a really vivid reminiscence of the second I obtained the e-mail from the IEEE Basis notifying us that our request had been authorized,” Orajaka says. “That has been some of the phenomenal moments of my life. The Basis supplied us with $44,521. I nonetheless keep in mind the quantity, right down to the final greenback.”

The grant supplied the seed cash to launch their startup that 12 months: Inexperienced Village Electrical energy Tasks of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The IEEE member is GVE’s chief govt.

GVE additionally has obtained assist through the years from IEEE Good Village, which helps entrepreneurs arrange small utilities. Good Village supplies grants for the preliminary funding to purchase tools, in addition to mentoring and coaching.

Right this moment GVE is one among Nigeria’s main renewable vitality firms. It supplies options for residential, business, and industrial prospects in addition to for unserved and underserved communities. Companies embody consulting on renewable vitality initiatives, implementing good metering and utility administration programs, and putting in solar-based programs at motels, places of work, and manufacturing vegetation.

“To a big extent, I wouldn’t be the individual I’m at this time if not for the assist from the IEEE and IEEE Basis.”

The corporate’s present minigrids have a complete saved capability of about 5.1 megawatts, serving greater than 30,000 households and companies. By the tip of this 12 months, Orajaka expects the entire minigrid capability to extend to about 8.3 MWs and the variety of prospects to double.

GVE is on a hiring spree. Orajaka says he anticipates the variety of workers to extend from 68 to 90 this 12 months.

The corporate helps homegrown innovation, he says, and it kinds world strategic partnerships. It’s working with mobility firms to supply charging stations and battery-swapping stations for e-bikes and different e-vehicles all through the nation, he says.

“We predict [the collaborations] are well timed, provided that the Nigerian authorities has just lately eliminated the agelong subsidy on petroleum merchandise—which has elevated their worth by nearly an element of 4,” he says. “Having these [stations] in place will assist struggle local weather change.”

Orajaka and the opposite founders have set their sights larger than simply offering off-grid rural areas with electrical energy. He says the corporate’s long-term strategic imaginative and prescient is to change into the most important, most energy-efficient utility within the nation.

Members of IEEE Good Village and people from the area people assist set up one among Inexperienced Village Electrical energy Tasks’s solar-powered minigrids. Ifeanyi Orajaka

A acknowledged chief in Africa

Each Orajaka and GVE have obtained accolades.

In 2018 he was within the inaugural cohort of the Obama Basis’s Leaders Africa program. Established by former U.S. president Barack Obama, the management program is for these from Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Europe who’re working to enhance public, non-public, and civic improvement via grassroots motion.

The Guardian named Orajaka one among Nigeria’s 100 Most Revolutionary CEOs of 2019, and he was chosen because the 2016 Chief of the 12 months by the African Power Chamber.

The London Inventory Trade recognized GVE as one of many fastest-growing non-public firms in Africa in 2019.

U.S. local weather envoy John Kerry in September visited the Wuse market in Abuja, Nigeria, the place he joined different dignitaries to rejoice that GVE had related the market to the facility grid with a 1 MW microgrid. The mission obtained assist from Energy Africa and USAID.

Turning into an impact-focused enterprise chief

Orajaka joined IEEE as a pupil member at Federal College as a result of, he says, the group’s publications widened his horizons “past what we have been being taught in class.” He says membership helped him get perception into new applied sciences and matters that have been of curiosity to these working within the electrical and electronics engineering subject

“By way of the displays and technical lectures that have been being delivered, I obtained actually and determined to affix,” he says.

Whereas pursuing a bachelor’s diploma in electrical and electronics engineering, he labored as a Shell intern in 2009. He helped keep, restore, and check the corporate’s turbines, motors, pumps, and different subject tools. Later that 12 months, he obtained an internship at ExxonMobil, the place he labored till 2010 in IT assist, serving to with information community initiatives and person help.

He earned a grasp’s diploma in electrical energy programs engineering in 2018 from the College of Port Harcourt, in Choba, Nigeria.

To higher discover ways to run an organization, Orajaka has taken programs on enterprise administration and administration from the Harvard Enterprise Faculty Govt Schooling program. He’s additionally a graduate of the Stanford College Graduate Faculty of Enterprise Seed program for entrepreneurs from Africa and South Asia.

Orajaka credit IEEE for a lot of his enterprise success.

“To a big extent, I wouldn’t be the individual I’m at this time if not for the assist from the IEEE and IEEE Basis,” he says. “Maybe I might have been an engineer working in both Chevron, Shell, or ExxonMobil at this time.

“The mentorship from the leaders and all the opposite members of the Basis and the Good Village household—I wish to name them household—has helped form me to be a enterprise chief. And never only a enterprise chief, an impact-focused enterprise chief.

“IEEE helped us to change into higher engineers past what we have been taught within the classroom,” he continues. “The IEEE ecosystem opened us as much as assist from extra skilled and superior engineers from totally different elements of the world who may look via our designs and supply skilled steerage which have through the years helped form our engineering design-thinking course of. Good Village, which is a mixture of a number of professionals from totally different industries, helped us to be higher entrepreneurs, to look past simply the engineering facet and study expertise required to truly construct a sustainable enterprise.”