One of the planet’s great environmental challenges lies in Africa, where fast-growing nations are trying to scale up their economies without escalating their reliance on fossil fuels. CrossBoundary Energy (CBE) aims to help resolve that dilemma.
The company builds self-contained solar- and wind-power and energy-storage systems near centers of commercial activity, then sells or leases the power to corporate clients, including miner Rio Tinto, food-and-beverage giants Diageo and Unilever, and several national telecom companies. CBE owns and operates most of the infrastructure itself, and many of the systems are “off grid,” sidestepping local government-run utilities in order to build the power networks more quickly. CBE boasts more than $680 million in contracts across 20 African countries and Australia; it’s currently building Madagascar’s first wind farm.