Lucia Bakulumpagi-Wamala is a Ugandan energy entrepreneur, founder and CEO, of Bakulu Power, a Ugandan based renewable energy company that develops mini-grids, industrial parks and solar water pumps for irrigation.
Lucia says, she initially did not envision herself as an energy entrepreneur, her interests rather lay in luxury management.
“I used to be an agent for models in a model talent management company. I wanted to work for a luxury company like Balenciaga. I was going to get an MBA in luxury management, was admitted to a school in New York, had all this fancy life planned out and then I got pregnant. That’s when everything shifted.”
She left her job and took a flight from Canada back home where she would later get her aha moment and establish the company.
Incorporated in 2015, Bakulu Power is now one of the few renewable energy companies working to meet Africa’s exponential energy demand.
According to the Africa Chamber Report on the state of African Energy 2022, as of 2020, only 55% of Africa’s populace had access to electricity thus requiring doubling the capacity to achieve 100% access by 2030 and beyond.
Lucia has since become a formidable force in Africa’s energy sector. In 2020, she was named one of the 100 African Economic Leaders for Tomorrow by Institute Choiseul. A member of the Africa-Europe High-Level Platform for Sustainable Energy Investments (SEI), she has represented Africa’s private sector among 50 experts working with the European Union and Africa Union and has addressed Heads of States during the United Nations General Assembly and African Union Summit. She has also lectured at the Yale School of Management, and worked with the University of Michigan, and Oxford University.
She talked to GLIM about her journey as a renewable energy entrepreneur, dream for Africa’s energy sector, work-life balance, among other things.
GLIM: Luxury management and the energy sector are two worlds apart. Why clean energy?
LUCIA: I went back home when I was pregnant and it sounds cliche but I had this kind of Jesus moment while at my mum’s grave, bowling my eyes out. Everything was just so real and it changed everything. I was just looking for a deeper meaning, something more meaningful for my daughter. I started thinking about life much differently and what I could do to contribute to developing and helping other people back home. I went through a bunch of ideas and settled on energy.
I care about the environment because Uganda is gorgeous and when you hear things about the forest cover being completely depleted, you have to care. I care about people, their prosperity and dignity. I chose to shift the organization back home when I was pregnant because I was thinking about how my daughter could live in Canada and not have to worry about such things but I was like why should it be completely different for her and my cousin’s kids back home.
GLIM: What services/ products do you offer at Bakulu Power?
LUCIA: Right now we are focused on mini-grids. We are developing three and we offer auxiliary services in Buvuma district which is the most deserving district. Not that it’s where I am from, but it’s one district with no presence of National grid. So that poses very unique challenges but you know we are up to the job. We figure that if we can make this one work here, we can be able to replicate this in other places.
GLIM: What are some of the milestones you have achieved since starting Bakulu Power?
LUCIA: I feel like my biggest achievement is always adding to the team. You know I am not technical; I’m on a very steep learning curve all the time, so whenever I find people who want to work with us; be it an organization, an employee, or even a contractor, that always feels like a great accomplishment because it’s a tough ride. And I’ve been fortunate to work with several partners and universities like Oxford, Yale and the University of Alabama.
GLIM: What challenges do you face running an energy company and how do you overcome them?
LUCIA: I think the challenges are there no matter the industry. Sometimes I ask myself how I ended up starting something in the most difficult industry on earth (laughs). I don’t know how, but I also tell myself God must have seen that I have some unique ability to make things work. It’s hard when big institutional investors want you to have something to prove but there’s no money for you to do that. But I think the biggest challenge probably for anyone starting is building up a team and I’ve been so fortunate about that. Everybody is just outstanding.
GLIM: What are some of the current projects you are working on that we should look forward to?
LUCIA: Besides our mini-grids, we are working on solar oxygen systems with Innovative Canadians for Change and the University of Alberta which is exciting. We are also working on a primary school with an organization in France called the United Green Living. So all of these things are quite interconnected, we have a holistic approach to all things. You usually hear people just building schools and it’s great but having one in the middle of somewhere with no sanitation and electricity is not easy. So we have a lot of partners and a lot of things that are very much integrated.
GLIM: What opportunities exist in Africa’s energy sector that women can tap into?
LUCIA: There are so many opportunities. If you look at it, how many of our people don’t have electricity? That shows you all the opportunities and as much as people love to just oversimplify things like we are all going to get in electric cars. That’s cool but they still need to be powered by something. So there are countless opportunities and not every location, culture and community needs the same solution. We need more people innovating, developing and putting their neck out and using their money to deploy these beautiful ventures, we need more people doing policy work, and helping governments to create environments and conditions to allow the people to do their work.
GLIM: What are some of the books, tools or resources that have contributed to your success as a leader in this sector?
LUCIA: It can be a bit lonely to be a founder because you know what they say, ‘success has many fathers and failure is always a bastard’. So it can be tough because if something goes well you give it to your team, but if something goes wrong, it’s yours (laughs) and even your teammates and colleagues don’t understand what you’re going through, so it’s a bit lonely. To remedy that I listen to this one podcast called “How I built this” and it is crazy to just see that everybody goes through that feeling of loneliness and completely feels like a failure sometimes. Remember, I’m not technical so I’m learning everything as I go. I have a degree in Public Administration with a specialization in Community Intervention. I’m not trained in anything energy-related and this can be hard on your self-esteem; to go to meetings and have this attitude of learning which therefore means you don’t know, and sometimes you just sound stupid, you look stupid, you feel stupid, that can be tough. So listening to other people’s experiences helps a lot.
GLIM: Juggling motherhood with running a company is no walk in the park. How do you balance the two?
LUCIA: I’m a single mother and I am doing this interview while in the park so it’s a juggle. For me the more things, I have to juggle, I see blessings, and where there’s God I think you can handle more. I have an amazing daughter who I’ve often taken with me to conferences and meetings. It’s 2022, women have kids, it’s not a secret, they want to sit in the board rooms, so sometimes the kids just come too. I have had a lot of great experiences where I’ve had organizers pay for her flight as well.
GLIM: What drives you?
LUCIA: Possibilities and the more people I am fortunate to work with and get to know, that becomes my motivation because they saw something in me and our team. I am motivated by the communities that we have made promises to and just the ability to create something from an idea and see it come to fruition and add to the world and have some part in improving the lives for other people back home.
GLIM: What impact would you like to leave in Africa with Bakulu Power?
LUCIA: I would like to accomplish electrification. I don’t care about megawatts. I care about things like do the lights work, does the heat work, does the hair conditioner and factory work. I just want better for the people, I want people to have jobs. If there’s no electricity, none of those things will work, so energy is a precursor to development.
GLIM: Complete this sentence AFRICA’S FUTURE IS …
LUCIA: Africa’s future is the world’s future.
