PARTNERSHIP WITH JABIL A MILESTONE FOR IMQS
February 12, 2016
TOWER COMPANIES & INTELLIGENT SITE ASSET MANAGEMENT
February 26, 2016
Investor interest in renewable energy holds great opportunities for the African continent. IMQS is acutely aware of opportunities and challenges that emerge in this field. This is why we are playing a key role in developing innovative asset management software solutions to support the drive for clean energy in Africa.
A Global Drive for Clean Energy
Since 2014 there has been renewed investor interest in clean energy across the globe.1 Tech advances have made renewables more cost-effective.2 Environmental restrictions and consumer concerns over climate change have seen at least 59% of Fortune 100 companies set carbon emissions reduction commitments.3 As the giants of industry such as Microsoft, General Motors and Jabil turn to renewable energy solutions to power their global productivity, new investment opportunities are being unlocked.
Economic Growth in Africa
Africa is undergoing unprecedented growth. The continent’s economies are growing at an average rate of 4% per year, according to a 2015 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Six of the world’s ten fastest growing economies over the past decade were in sub-Saharan Africa. With sustained growth, Africa’s GDP should increase roughly three-fold by 2030 and seven-fold by 2050. 4
In order to sustain this growth trajectory a major investment in energy is, however, imperative.
According to IRENA, Africa displays a huge potential for the exploitation of renewable energy sources. Opportunities in bio-thermal, geothermal, hydro, marine, solar and wind energy abound. Solar and wind especially show great promise for off-grid and mini-grid electrification in remote locations for both household and industrial use. 5
Africa could be seen to be “at the forefront of the energy transition with some of the greatest challenges and best opportunities in the world”, as noted by Dr Christoph Frei, Secretary General of the World Energy Council, in the run-up to the 2016 Africa Energy Indaba. 6
Investors, however, face difficult challenges. Ailing or inadequate infrastructure, abysmal grid-power supplies and the need for industries such as mobile telecoms to invest in remote off-grid locations drive the need for new energy solutions but also increase operational costs and risk.
How IMQS is Supporting the Renewable Energy Drive
Due to our vast experience in developing Infrastructure Asset Management Solutions in the African context, IMQS is very aware of the challenges related to managing and maintaining assets in rugged and challenging environments.
Our Infrastructure Asset Management and Project Control System suites have been developed in order to facilitate a systematic, holistic, geographically modelled and technology driven approach to life-cycle asset management that reduces capital and operational expenditure as well as risk.
Our recent partnership with Jabil Inala [read more] has placed IMQS at the forefront of developing innovative solutions geared directly towards remote site monitoring [read more], distributed energy solutions and energy outsourcing. Along with our existing software suites, we are currently in the process of developing a business intelligence suite. This suite will harness innovations in data analytics to better serve the infrastructural asset management needs of investors through the aggregation of big swathes of data.
IMQS is proud to bring its culture of innovation and problem oriented software solutions to the field of renewable energy in Africa.
How is your company pushing the boundaries of innovation and contributing to a cleaner future for our planet?
