November 19th, 2012
First Pico Solar Home System Assembly Line in Sub Saharan Africa in Commercial Production
The commercial production of the first Pico Solar Home System assembly line in Sub Saharan Africa started in the beginning of October 2012. The assembly facility in Mozambique’s capital Maputo was designed and developed by the German company fosera GmbH & Co KG from January to April 2012. The design, implementation and start up were made possible through the joint efforts of the private company fosera and the Universities of Maputo and Ulm/Neu-Ulm. All necessary steps were taken and documented within the framework of a bachelor’s thesis by German student Mr. Benjamin Seckinger. The local assembly line was designed according to Triple Bottom Line Principles to have positive impacts on the environment, society and economy. The thesis was already presented with two awards, the VDI and the CDG awards, for its positive impact on local job creation and development in the field of renewable energy.
In the course of the assembly line set up, a total of 15 persons were trained in the technical and managerial skills needed to run a Pico Solar Home System assembly line successfully. The training laid the foundation for a successful commercial start up with five Mozambican employees supervised by the local manager of fosera Southern Africa, Mr. Valeriano Pedro.
“The local assembly line in Maputo enables fosera to better serve the Mozambican market with our high quality solar products”, says general manager of fosera Ms. Catherine Adelmann.
Hoping to further their international expansion, fosera is eager to implement additional local assembly lines in its key markets in the future, thereby increasing the positive impact on local societies and economies by means of technology transfer, know how training, job creation and carbon dioxide emission reduction.
