Our Story

How it all began

ARC Power's Founder, Karl Boyce has worked in East Africa for the past 15 years, and saw first-hand that one of the biggest factors limiting development was the lack of access to productive-use power in the communities.

Existing solar home systems performed well as an interim solution, but the DC power provided was small scale and when the sun went down, the power went off, hence the first phase of ARC Power's journey was to roll out large scale solar mini-grids, connecting up to 1,000 houses from one generation unit (ARC) to prove a sustainable model. Leveraging the knowledge and experience the Company has developed through becoming the largest mini-grid developer and operator in Rwanda, ARC Power sought to address the challenges faced by both national and private organisations to provide on-grid and off-grid energy generation and distribution infrastructure in a commercially viable way.

Our aim

Ending power inequality

Whilst designing the offering, we reviewed other solar power schemes. We saw families who were unable to afford the up-front set-up and connection fees, going without electricity.

Later, those same families were paying their connected neighbours, so their children could do homework under a strong light. This observation defined our fully inclusive model. There are no upfront costs with ARC Power at all. Instead, we install light fittings and power sockets in each connected home. For free. We aim to make getting connected as simple as possible for everybody.

Our purpose

Empowering communities

Reliable power unlocks the potential for local business growth and productivity, improved education and community prosperity, through access to the internet, appliances and light after dark.
Expert skills are transferred to locally educated teams with a view to providing long term support for the project, key individuals and the communities.
Our rollout target of 400,000 connections across four countries by 2027 will connect circa 2 million people to affordable, reliable and clean power.

Empowering communities through affordable, reliable and clean power.

Since 2016, we have grown steadily to our current core team of 60 including more than 50 Rwandan and Mozambican staff. By 2024 we will employ more than 500 people, creating and safeguarding jobs in the communities we serve.