Renewable Energy Association Of Nigeria, (REAN) Appoints New Executive Secretary.

Dr. Oluwatosin Akande has been appointed as the new executive secretary, renewable energy association of Nigeria, (REAN), a global development, M&E, project manager, & renewable energy (RE) specialist with 15yrs cumulative experience across the U.S., U.K., and Nigerian sustainable energy, housing construction, water-utilities, agro-business enterprise, and economic development sectors started her international career with City of Baltimore Dept of Housing & Community Development in Maryland, USA as a Mayoral Fellow & Real Estate Planner managing the disposition of city-owned property. Secondly, she worked as a Network Analyst in the water engineering department of Thames Water in London, UK managing utilities pipes, mains, reservoir-assets, and impact on water quality for City of London end-users. After her exposure overseas in infrastructure asset-management, Tosin decided to pursue her purpose, fervor, and zeal for national transformation and economic development on the home-front. In her first professional stint in Nigeria, she was the Monitoring & Evaluation Lead for the World Bank-DFID Growth & Employments in States, Construction & Real Estate Program—GEMS 2. Thereafter, she worked as a Market Analyst and Intervention Lead for UKAID/DFID Business Innovation Facility, Agro-Business Enterprise Program—BIF 2.

As a resident and development practitioner seriously concerned about the perennial problems plaguing Nigeria’s power sector – a fundamental determinant of the nation’s economic growth and industrialization, in 2015, she pivoted into the energy sector by executing advanced research at the doctoral level for six years. Her research investigated prospects of solar clean tech solutions to be quick-wins in circumventing the capital-intensiveness of Nigeria’s grid-network expansion and rectifying energy vacuums in the nation’s C&I industries with the purpose of intensifying output-productivity, gross revenues, profits, and firm enterprise competitiveness.

As Lead Consultant and Founder, insights from her study prompted her to establish RED Energy & Sustainability Unit (RES:UNiT) an arm of RED Universal Consulting, a global development and energy advisory practice, where she has supported as an independent consultant various Nigerian power sector stakeholders. These include Private Solar Enterprises / Energy Entrepreneurs, REA, and Nigeria Energy Transition Office (ETO) at SEforALL. Most recently, she was the pioneer Team Lead, Renewable Energy Off-Grid Solutions at PowerCap Ltd, an energy utility providing network-upgrades, asset-marking/mapping, metering, enumeration, and revenue cycle management to Ikeja Electric, Eko, and Enugu DISCO’s. At PowerCap, she built the company’s RE portfolio five-year outlook culminating in ($34.9M Pico and SHS; $8.8M captive power; and $9.6M mini-grid) potential market-revenue project pipeline.

Professionally, she is keen on engaging energy practitioners and industry stakeholders with an unrelenting resolve to produce quantum level, breakthrough outcomes in power supply for Nigeria, continental Africa, and other emerging nations across the globe, leveraging on market-disruptive Solar RE Ideations, Initiatives, & Deployment.

Academically, Tosin holds B.A. dual honors degrees in Governance & Public Policy from Syracuse University, New York, USA, and an M.Sc. honors degree in Development Studies from the London School of Economics (LSE). She earned her Doctor of Philosophy Degree from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA in Socio-Economic Development. She is a member of African Women in Energy Development Initiative (AWEDI) and a Non-Independent Executive Director at Renewable Energy Bank of Africa (REBA).