French connected solar lighting company Sunna Design is to install 50,000 intelligent street lamps in Togo in a contract worth €40m.

The contract with the government of Togo is for the supply and installation over 24 months, and then maintenance over 12 years.

This contract, funded by the General Directorate of the French Treasury, is part of the larger Cizo (“switch on the light” in mina language) project, which aims at electrifying 500,000 rural households, about 1.5 million inhabitants in 1000 villages.

A pillar of Togo’s NDP national development plan deployed by the Togolese presidency, Cizo aims to speed up the modernisation of the country, including ensuring universal access to electricity by 2030.

Public lighting grids have an impact on rural communities’ life conditions and strengthening of the economy, by facilitating passenger and goods transport, pedestrian traffic, and night work, as well as reducing road accidents and insecurity.

Solar street lights are autonomous and resilient energy sources, and bring public lighting and connection services to off-grid areas. In Togo where only eight per cent of the 8.3 million residents are connected to the grid, access to energy is a key factor for economic development. The challenge is also to promote geographical balance, in response to an urbanisation phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa, through a planned deployment of sustainable, decentralised and smart infrastructures.

“This partnership reflects the head of state’s will to make energy accessible to rural populations using sustainable solutions,” said Mila Aziable, minister delegate to Togo’s president for energy and mines. “Having Sunna Design by our side and benefiting from its expertise in the field of solar lighting shows the importance of renewable energies in our national development policies, and sets the tone of the large-scale electrification project Cizo.”

Consisting of 50,000 connected street lights, Sunna Design’s project plans for solar lighting roll out in priority areas, identified and investigated beforehand via a census study of rural infrastructures, ensuring a measurable economic and social impact of each lighting point on people.

The iSSL+ all-in-one connected street lights with batteries are designed to resist high temperatures, and are produced by Sunna Design at its factory in the Bordeaux region.

The operation and maintenance services over 12 years include participation and strengthening of an ecosystem of local operators, promoting local employment.

“The trust granted by the Togo government – a visionary, pioneer and highly demanding partner in the fields of electrification and digitisation in rural environments – acknowledges the solidity of Sunna Design’s know-how, as well as our capacity to innovate and accompany our clients over time,” said Ignace de Prest, Sunna Design CEO. “That also represents a new step in our company’s transformation, now an essential partner for both urban and rural applications. The impact of the project on populations strengthens the teams’ commitment and our company’s project.”

The Togolese Agency for Rural Electrification & Renewable Energies (AT2ER), promoter of the project, was able to validate Sunna Design’s technical position, equipment and track record in Sub-Saharan Africa rural areas, and finalise a project including performance and guarantee commitments over time.

Sunna Design’s know-how extends beyond lighting; it can integrate an ecosystem of IoT applications powered by the clean energy provided by Sunna Design’s intelligent solar batteries.

Autonomous and connected, these applications answer several needs in terms of connectivity, telecommunications and safety. They represent a development focus of the digital economy, another pillar of Togo’s NDP.

This application has already been implemented and tested by Sunna Design in Togo, in the frame of a pilot project operational since 2020, financed by the General Directorate of the Treasury. This project will allow the continuation of these experiments in some targeted areas, as well as skill improvement on the wifi grid, to offer internet access to villages through the solar street lamps.

“This project will combine decentralised energy and broadband connectivity to provide both public lighting and internet access to the populations,” said Cina Lawson, Togolese minister of digital economy and technological innovation. “Thus, it complements our vision towards accelerating the convergence between energy and digital technology, which we will initiate by deploying optical fibre on the electric network.”