Martin Baart, CEO Ecoligo – Episode 28

Martin Baart has a passion to bring solar projects to the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) sector in emerging markets. Fighting against local misconceptions about what solar can do, and bigger issues around how to fund such projects, they found a solution through crowdfunding, and transparency in all areas of the business. Martin and ecoligo have a great business and story to tell. About our guest Martin Baart has more than 14 years of experience in the renewable energy industry with more than 10 years in emerging markets. He started his career with a German regional municipality on grid integration of grid-scale solar PV projects. During his Masters he lived and worked in Australia for the global leader in Microgrids, Powercorp, on the technical integration of solar and wind solutions into Microgrids, mainly for remote communities, mining operations and island utilities. Moving into business development he opened up the European office for Powercorp. After successfully entering the market, he supported the management in its sale of the business to ABB. For ABB he build up the Microgrid business unit in Madrid, after which he left to join Berlin based Start-up OneShore Energy as CTO and first employee. With them he developed the East African markets and technologies suited for the risk minimization of Off-Grid Solar PPA’S. After building up the company, he left in 2015 to prepare for the foundation of ecoligo, addressing the key barrier for solar projects in emerging markets: a fully serviced and financed solution, taking away all worries from the clients. Since then, he led the business into regional hubs in Central America, West Africa and East Africa and introduced the solution also for energy efficiency projects in the markets. Martin is a qualified Electronics Technician, has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Trier University of Applied Science, a Master of Business and Engineering from Steinbeis University in Berlin and a Global Executive Master of Business Administration from IE business school in Madrid. He also is a Certified Expert for Climate & Renewable Energy Finance from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. Ecoligo provides a fully financed solar-as-a-service solution for businesses in emerging markets. With a complete digital platform for financing and delivering solar projects, ecoligo removes the barriers that prevent such projects from being realised. Supplying businesses with affordable electricity enables them to grow and boost the local economy. The solar projects are financed through the crowdinvesting platform www.ecoligo.investments, offering fixed and attractive returns to private investors. Investments start from 100€ and save tonnes of CO2 emissions, enabling impactful citizen participation in the global energy transition. Martin Baart on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinbaart/ Martin Baart on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartinBaart ecoligo on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecoligo/ ecoligo website https://www.ecoligo.com & https://www.ecoligo.investments Martin Baart at EcoSummit 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NATDMQzZraU ecoligo on Twitter https://twitter.com/ecoligo EPISODE LINKS The Berlin start-up ecoligo will receive EUR 2.5 million of funding from Saxovent, an investor specializing in ecological investments. https://www.newsghana.com.gh/ecoligo-receives-eur-2-5-million-funding-from-saxovent/ Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe I'm very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter. If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated. Twitter https://twitter.com/weekincleantech Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thisweekincleantech/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/davidhunt2013/