Genser launched its operations by supplying electrical energy on to Ghana’s industrial sector. It began with the nation’s gold mines after two Genser interns—Chen-rei Wan, SM ’07, PhD ’11, and Stephanie Dalquist ’02, MEng ’03, SM ’05—performed a complete overview of all Ghanaian industries and decided that the mines’ excessive, constant electrical energy calls for, restricted entry to dependable energy, and pressing operational wants made them extremely motivated and well-resourced early adopters. “At the moment, Pablo in Latin America was targeted primarily on oil and gasoline and textile industries,” says Asiamah-Adjei. “However we took a really completely different flip.”
Of the eight energy vegetation it has constructed—seven in Ghana and one in Burkina Faso—three have powered gold mines solely and others have additionally equipped energy to the grid and to Côte d’Ivoire. With 5 nonetheless working below its management, Genser has the power to generate over 200 megawatts of electrical energy and performs a number one position in supplying energy to West African trade.
Along with serving to Genser goal its first prospects, Dalquist additionally launched Asiamah-Adjei to Frances Rogoz ’07, an economics main drawn to improvement work after taking a D-Lab class at MIT. Rogoz quickly joined Genser as its first full-time rent and has been with the corporate ever since.
Rogoz began when the corporate was working out of an workplace common from a delivery container. She helped form Genser’s progress by growing monetary fashions, advising on contracts, and taking part in a key position in main main infrastructure tasks—most notably a natural-gas pipeline throughout western Ghana that has turn out to be important. As we speak she serves as VP of undertaking improvement, main a group of 10 and overseeing West African strategic initiatives. “The natural-gas pipeline has been tremendous transformative for us,” she says. “It has allowed us to essentially spend money on infrastructure not solely that we are able to use, however that the entire nation can use.” Genser is now Ghana’s largest proprietor of gasoline pipelines and its solely non-public one, working 4 that whole 430 kilometers.
Genser’s progress has not come with out controversy. In 2022, a coalition of Ghanaian civil society organizations charged that the corporate was receiving preferential remedy on gasoline tariffs and bypassing regulatory procedures. Asiamah-Adjei says these claims had been “misinformed,” and finally they had been dismissed by the Ghanaian parliament after an intense, months-long investigation. He believes the assaults mirrored public suspicion of personal infrastructure improvement fairly than mistrust of Genser’s operations and says that, paradoxically, they solidified the corporate’s standing: “Previous to this, everyone thought our pipelines belong to the federal government, as a result of no person builds these items in Africa.”
Whereas transporting fossil fuels isn’t a clear course of, Genser performed environmental and social affect assessments to information sustainable pipeline development. The corporate additionally works to mitigate environmental hurt with land restoration and biodiversity measures. It had planted 100,000 teak seedlings as of 2023 and plans to succeed in 1 million by 2028 as a part of its dedication to environmental stewardship.
Crossing borders, fueling progress
Genser’s most formidable undertaking so far is a cross-border natural-gas pipeline stretching from Prestea, Ghana, to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, with long-term plans to increase into Guinea. “We constructed the gasoline infrastructure to have the ability to take the gasoline to a much less developed nation, to displace diesel, and now we are going to backfill that with photo voltaic or wind,” says Asiamah-Adjei. Genser now lastly has the capital to maneuver ahead on an unique aim: investing within the infrastructure wanted to provide renewable vitality.
In 2018 and 2019, Genser introduced in two graduates of MIT’s Know-how and Public Coverage program—Elizabeth Murphy ’15, SM ’18, and Janet Yun, SM ’18—to assist chart the pipeline’s course. As an alternative of choosing probably the most direct route, they studied regional improvement developments to anticipate industrial zones which may emerge over the following 25 years, and the corporate routed the pipeline accordingly. “Backside line is that we introduced on MIT folks at any time when we would have liked to resolve our issues,” says Asiamah-Adjei.
