“The engineers ETC provided us have been excellent additions to the team. They have displayed a strong work ethic and have been quick to learn our processes and be heavily involved in the business contributing positively from the day they joined…” – Bola Ogidan (CEO/ Founder, Pirano Energy)
About
This case study is about how Energy Talent Company (ETC) through its matching service, provides well-trained and vetted solar talent to one of Nigeria’s leading Solar Energy companies called Pirano Energy, and how this service helps this solar energy company to have access to excellent solar professionals which they utilize in scaling their business, and also maintaining the quality of their jobs, while meeting the increasing demand of their customers.
Executive Summary
Pirano Energy Limited is a renewable energy business based in Nigeria focused on providing affordable energy solutions to urban and peri-urban businesses, unserved or underserved by the national electricity grid. The company primarily focuses on deploying financed solar to multi-site businesses such as petrol station groups, banks, pharmacies/clinics, office buildings, and residential estates. The company has been in operation since 2019 and has deployed more than 120 solar solutions totalling over 1.25MW of power across 9 states in Nigeria.
In Nigeria today, a lot of individuals and organizations are opting for solar energy more than in the past. The reason for this spike in demand for solar energy is mainly economic. From fuel scarcity which has made obtaining petrol and diesel excessively difficult, to the rising cost of maintenance of generators, individuals and businesses have naturally sought alternative solutions for power that can provide the power they need, at a lower cost. Pirano Energy through their financing solutions allows users to pay monthly for their power, which enables them to reduce their power expenditure by 10 – 70%.
With more individuals and businesses becoming aware of the glaring benefits of solar energy, companies like Pirano Energy received more requests from new customers looking to engage a reliable and trusted solar company to provide solar installations and solutions for their homes and offices.
Challenges/ The Need
With more clients in the pipeline due to the increase in demand for solar, Pirano Energy needed to grow its team. For a company that has been in existence for over 3 years, they already had a reputation for the excellent quality of services that they offered to their customers. What this meant was that Pirano needed to grow its team with quality engineers and solar professionals to keep up with and even exceed the standard of quality which they are known for.
To achieve this, the key challenge for Pirano was being able to find engineering talent that had not only the requisite solar experience but also individuals that have a strong work ethic; pay very close attention to detail; be focused on excellence; armed with strong communication skills and an understanding of how to communicate with customers.
Similar to other specialized industries, hiring solar engineers could be quite time-consuming as companies try to assess the candidates as much as possible to determine their competence and ensure they are a cultural fit for the organization. Pirano Energy was growing aggressively, and it needed additional high-quality in-house engineers to meet its growth targets.
How Energy Talent Company Helped Pirano Energy
Energy Talent Company solved Pirano Energy’s challenge, by helping the company select some high-quality engineers that it could utilize under contract. These engineers ETC supplied to Pirano, we’re not just expertly trained to achieve technical competency but also trained to acquire important soft skills needed in today’s job market. ETC through its training program has a pool of trained, experienced, and vetted solar professionals from which they supplied quality talents to Pirano Energy. According to Bola Ogidan, CEO and Founder of Pirano Energy, the engineers ETC provided to his company possessed and demonstrated not just technical competencies and skills in Auto Cad and electrical engineering, but the engineers were also all strong and confident communicators.
ETC was able to provide Pirano Energy with the quality of talents that it desired and needed for its business. This solution provided by ETC has helped companies like Pirano Energy get seamless access to solar professionals who are critical to the growth of their business.
Results
Pirano has successfully embedded different ETC talents to support their internal teams full-time.
Pirano trusts the quality of the solar talents ETC provides because they are skilled and vetted by ETC before they are provided to the Pirano team for their jobs/projects.
By utilizing ETC’s solar talent matching service, Pirano Energy has been able to get access to quality engineers with a mix of technical and soft skills.
Pirano would recommend ETC to other solar companies as they have been very happy with the talent they have provided so far, and look forward to utilizing their services further in the future.
