SEGEN SOLAR: The Power of Partnership
Segen has proven its worth across Africa as the global energy transition rolls on. By bringing the world’s best products to the continent, partnering with those on the ground that have the knowhow and experience to install and maintain successfully over the long-term, the company has become recognised as an industry leader and a go-to name in renewable energy and critical infrastructure.
Supported by:
James Shirley, Chief Sales Officer Africa
Africa’s energy story is being rewritten from the ground up. Rather than waiting for national grids to reach every farm, business and household, installers across the continent are increasingly building power supply from scratch, one rooftop and one battery at a time. Behind a large share of that shift sits Segen Solar Africa, a specialist wholesale and distribution business that has become one of the region’s most relied-upon suppliers of solar and storage equipment. Managing Director Africa James Shirley and Chief Sales Officer Africa Jacolien Richards are excited about the way forward after building a reputation as southern Africa’s trusted energy partner.
Segen’s offering is deliberately broad. “We import, warehouse, distribute, and service solar and storage products, as well as train customers on how to utilise and maintain those products – these are our primary focus areas,” James explains, adding that water is the next frontier. “In Africa, we will soon add water to our portfolio on the back of market needs for clean water and decentralised energy.” The company employs around 100 people in South Africa and 600 globally, having been established in the UK in 2004 before opening its South African operation in 2014.
BUILT FOR AFRICA
What underpins the business, James says, is a single guiding purpose. “Our mission is to decarbonise the world, one installation at a time.” It is a mission he has pursued since entering the renewable energy industry in 2008, working across EPCs, OEMs and distributors before arriving at Segen, and one he continues to champion as Chairman of the Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa and a former member of the South African Renewable Energy Council. He also sits on the board of a Producer Responsibility Organisation overseeing Extended Producer Responsibility, ensuring the industry plans for the eventual decommissioning of the products it sells.
Jacolien brings a different, complementary background, having spent 30 years in the corporate environment, starting in retail and FMCG after studying public relations, before moving into an industry body involved in launching the Consumer Protection Act. That grounding shaped how Segen built its African business almost from scratch. “When Segen came to South Africa, they came with a vanilla option and only had available what they worked with in the UK. They had no customer base, and we have built it to where it is today by combining experiences and listening to customers,” she says. “We have had to look at trends and be very agile so that we can develop solutions that work for the African market.”
That adaptability now underpins a rapidly growing regional footprint, with a warehouse opened in Tanzania in 2025 to service East Africa, and a strong footprint across West and Central Africa. It is a market moving fast enough to reward that positioning: analysis from Ember shows the continent is on track to install 17 GW of solar in 2026, up 45% year-on-year and a record for a third consecutive year, with 36 of Africa’s 54 countries expected to install record volumes. The International Energy Agency’s figures echo the trend, recording that renewable capacity additions doubled across sub-Saharan Africa in 2025 to around 12 GW, with South Africa installing more than 3 GW of solar PV in a single year for the first time.
PARTNERS NOT COMPETITORS
For James, that growth is precisely why Segen’s role matters. “For Africa, the big step is a bypass of centralised transmission,” he says, of a continent where national infrastructure has often struggled to keep pace with demand. Waiting for the state to extend power and clean water to every community would take decades, he argues, and the value Segen adds is in helping people skip that wait altogether, enabling “the homeowner or business or farmer or anyone to have clean power today.”
Two things allow for this significant offering, and set the company apart from other distributors in the region. The first is technology: Segen customers can browse the full product portfolio, check incoming stock, and access data sheets and brochures at any hour, and “they can shop online 24/7/365,” says James.
The second is proximity and longevity. “We have excellent service capability, we are very close to where our customers do their business, and we are in it for the long-term,” he adds. Crucially, Segen positions itself as an enabler rather than a rival to the installers it supplies. “We are a distributor, so we don’t compete with our customers, and that is very important in Africa.”
Jacolien points to a common industry frustration Segen has built its model around avoiding. “Outside of South Africa, generally, there is a challenge with suppliers bypassing the installers and trying to sell direct to the market, but then not being able to provide aftersales support. That is a big headache for EPCs right now,” she says. Segen instead routes every enquiry back through its installer network. “We believe we fill that gap, and if you speak to our customers, they will say that is our strength.”
That commitment to genuine partnership with installers runs deeper than a sales strategy. “They are the ones that do the work. They are in front of the homeowner and they are the ones that listen to homeowner’s problems before deploying a solution,” James says, framing the company’s role as a service partner. “Our job is to enable them to do their business as well as they can so that they can solve Africa’s crisis. We want to be the partner in that.”
Jacolien sees the same dynamic playing out across a continent where energy infrastructure has often developed in leaps rather than steady steps. “If you look at the evolution of electricity in Africa, in many regions it has skipped parts of the traditional journey. It has gone from absolutely nothing – no grid, no availability – and has gone straight to a renewable base,” she explains. Local installers, she argues, are best placed to understand that context, which is why Segen has built its expansion around supporting rather than displacing them. “We, as a responsible distributor with years of experience and global relationships, are partnering with those who understand what it’s like on the ground to support this evolution and make it a real change for people’s lives.”
REACHING FURTHER
That partnership model extends to the supply chain itself. “We have a global supply chain that we have partnered with from the beginning,” Jacolien says, describing relationships that have deepened over many years into something closer than a typical supplier-distributor arrangement. Segen is deliberately selective about who it works with. “These are globally recognised Tier 1 companies and we put a lot of research into which products we should launch as our reputation is on the line,” she explains, listing module suppliers, mounting specialists, inverter manufacturers and trusted local partners including KD Solar, each vetted by in-house engineers before being brought on board.
Growth across the region is also being pursued deliberately rather than opportunistically. Jacolien points to major prospects across all of southern Africa, alongside continued engagement with policymakers shaping how renewable energy is regulated. “We also connect with organisations that are involved in structuring regulation and decision making around how renewable energy will be deployed in these markets. We can act as a guide, with substantial experience globally,” she says, stressing the importance of getting the fundamentals right. “Having local lawmakers understand the technology and understand how the rules they make impact what goes into the downstream and making sure feed in tariffs are a viable option, while ensuring support links throughout the industry, is critical.”
Underlying it all is a straightforward proposition. “We buy globally but we deploy locally by region,” James explains, saying that for African markets, reliability outweighs low cost. “Having a partner that is compliant, bankable, reliable, with a proven track record is very attractive for installers and EPCs,” he notes, reiterating ‘buy from us because we are not your competition.’
That principle, they agree, is fundamental in the business’s offering but only holds if morality and ethically principles are embedded at every level. “We are an ethical company and that is important,” Jacolien says. “We do all of the due diligence, we follow each country’s laws, we are compliant with all regulations across all countries. We will walk away from a deal if we think it will not be compliant or ethical.” For a company selling products that reshape how people access power and water, she adds, that discipline is non-negotiable.
It is that combination, global scale delivered through local relationships, that positions Segen as more than a parts supplier as Africa’s decentralised energy market accelerates. The continent’s solar boom is still largely invisible in official statistics, with distributed installations outpacing the systems built to track them. Into that gap steps a company whose stated purpose has never been simply to move stock. Segen’s growth across South Africa, Tanzania and the wider region serves something larger than its own balance sheet: helping installers, communities and businesses reach clean power and water years before the grid ever could, and doing so in partnership with those who are also in Africa for the long-term.