- The French company Lagazel is inaugurating its third solar kit manufacturing unit in Thiès, Senegal.
- The locally manufactured equipment enables the electrification and productive use of solar photovoltaic energy.
Lagazel, a France-based company, has just opened a new solar kit manufacturing workshop in Senegal for its West African expansion.
In the city of Thiès, there is a newly inaugurated unit. 5,000 goods may be produced on-site each month by a group of seven technicians and two supervisors at Lagazel.
The 2015-founded company produces solar lamps for lighting and charging mobile devices, solar kits for electrifying a home or small business, solar bollards for outdoor lighting, and group setting options for community initiatives. Additionally, the recently created Boumba USB station enables the simultaneous charging of 16 smartphones or tablets utilizing solar photovoltaic energy.
The new company has also established factories in Burkina Faso and Benin to produce these electrical access kits. Additionally, Lagazel has already given away 100,000 solar kits in about 15 different African nations since entering the West African market. Through the help of local players, especially non-governmental organizations, the Senegalese collective stations are placed in schools (NGOs).
Lagazel is helping the electrification policy of the Senegalese government by establishing a presence there, which has resulted in the exemption of solar energy production equipment and other clean cooking kits from value-added tax (VAT) from 2020. The start-up also goes against other electricity suppliers who import their equipment from Asia to electrify rural areas using the pay-per-use approach by manufacturing their equipment locally.