Built in the sector he wants to serve.

Alexander Obiechina is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of ACOB Lighting Technology Limited, a renewable energy company he established in Abuja in 2016. He holds an MBA, specialising in Product Development Management (PDM), from Cardiff Metropolitan University, United Kingdom, and is a 2019 Mandela Washington Fellow, a programme sponsored by the US Department of State.

Under his leadership ACOB grew from a large-scale LED street lighting infrastructure company, with rollouts across 23 states, into a solar EPC and renewable energy service company (RESCO), among the pioneers of mini-grid development in Nigeria. ACOB partnered with the Rural Electrification Agency at a very early stage to pilot the development and rollout of mini-grids in Nigeria. Today its teams deliver productive-use solar systems that power markets, health centres, community facilities and businesses across Nigeria.

ACOB remains one of the pioneer local renewable energy companies to access concessional debt in the capital market to scale decentralised renewable energy solutions (mini-grids). That growth has given young Nigerians internships, training and job placements in the renewable energy sector.

Alexander has built partnerships with development partners through the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP), funded by the World Bank and the African Development Bank, and with GIZ under the Nigerian Energy Support Programme (NESP).

He has spoken on many platforms on taking distributed renewables and mini-grids beyond pilot scale, and on working with stakeholders in the sector towards a viable renewable energy market. He is standing for President of REAN to build on the association’s achievements, strengthen its institutional capacity and work with members to take the association to the next level.