While technological advancements in urban regions continue to accelerate at a rapid rate, the need for technology boosts in rural and more remote areas are just as important.
Enter off-grid power systems. In a nutshell, these systems work independently off of the grid, using batteries that can store excess energy that is generated by the solar system throughout the day.
Off-grid systems can provide electricity to rural and remote areas, including those with power outages, and can help prevent operations from coming to a stop. Off-grid power can also support cities and other urban areas with solar off-gride streetlights, off-grid power for IoT devices and power systems for grid support and backup. In a nutshell, off-grid power can provide back up grid support, bring connectivity to new areas, power mission critical devices and increase safety.
Moving forward, the off-grid solar market
is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.632 percent as the shift towards renewable energy and reducing fossil fuels continues to rise.
Companies like
Clear Blue Technologies INTL Inc. (
TSXV:CBLU,
OTCQB:CBUTF, FRA:0YA,
Forum) are contributing to that growth thanks to its own off-grid technology, called the Smart Off-Grid.
Headquartered in Toronto, Clear Blue Technologies’ mission is to provide clean, managed, wireless power at a lower cost, for lighting, internet of things devices and mission critical telecom applications like cellular, satellite/WiFi, and smart cities.
In tandem with this,
the company announced a massive agreement on July 29 with NuRAN Wireless Inc., a supplier of mobile and broadband wireless infrastructure solutions, valued between C$8 million and $10 million over the next three years.
Clear Blue signs agreement with NuRAN
The press states the contract awarded by NuRAN to Clear Blue includes a contract power to roughly 1,333 telecom sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This number reflects two-thirds of the total number of installations to be made while NuRAN will choose to retain vendor diversity by giving the remaining sites to other third-party suppliers.
The contract also includes Energy-as-a-Service, which will provide the company minimal recurring revenue of $100,000 per year for the minimum three years with the option for expansion and service contract renewals.
Similarly, NuRAN has the option to increase its current order with Clear Blue’s Smart Power systems by 30 to 50 percent, depending on how successful the first installations are and the availability of financing for follow-up projects.
“This is one of the largest deals secured to date and provides significant upside for Clear Blue’s revenues over the next three years,” Miriam Tuerk, co-founder and CEO, Clear Blue Technologies, said in a press release. “We see this as part of a trend, as we emerge from the global pandemic, where corporations are looking to be more sustainable. Projects are being greenlit and orders for our smart off-grid systems are picking up. As a result, Management is highly optimistic about revenue and top-line growth during the remainder of 2021 and into 2022.”
The first order, which represents $750,000 in revenue for the rest of 2021, began shipping in July. Moving into 2022 through to 2025, Clear Blue anticipates revenue of these systems to generate $2.5 million per year for a total of an additional $7.5 million.
Should NuRAN extend its contract with Clear Blue beyond the three-year period, the company anticipates the total value of the contract to cross over $15 million throughout the next 10 years.
“Clear Blue’s Smart Power and Energy-as-a-Service are key components to our planned telecom roll-out in the DRC, offering the lowest CAPEX/OPEX as well as the best performance and uptime,” Francis Létourneau, president CEO of NuRAN, said in a press release. “Because of that, it enables these rural sites to be simultaneously cost-effective and reliable for a strong, viable and profitable business model.”
This isn’t the first time Clear Blue and NuRAN have entered into an agreement together. Back in 2018, the companies first entered into an installation agreement. Last year, Clear Blue was awarded a contract from the telecom company in Cameroon worth $1.45 million.
Clear Blue recent contracts
In June it was announced that Clear Blue partnered with Parallel Wireless to bring telecommunication services to Africa.
According to the announcement, this partnership includes new Large-Scale Rollout with shipments expected to begin sometime within the next quarter.
“Clear Blue’s product architecture which uniquely meets the ‘five 9s’ high availability requirements for this project, demonstrates Clear Blue’s ability to support the most mission-critical of applications. With Clear Blue’s Smart Off-Grid solution, maximum uptime and high availability are integral to the system,” Tuerk said in the release. “Combining the Smart Off-Grid power of Clear Blue with the innovative Open RAN technology from Parallel Wireless, we can provide a solution that meets the needs of mainstream, primetime telecom applications in even the harshest of environments.”
Clear Blue
also announced in mid-July it had entered into a partnership with Avanti Communications to deploy rural connectivity throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Over the next three-to-five years, the partnership is projected to deliver mobile network coverage to at least 400 million people that do not currently have access to mobile broadband services.
“With only 26 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa already connected through mobile internet, we’re looking forward to bringing connectivity to areas where costs and lack of infrastructure make internet services prohibitive,” Tuerk states.
The investment opportunity
With off-grid power accelerating — and as more and more remote and rural areas are gaining access to this kind of power — Clear Blue Technologies is certainly making a name for itself.
Following the company’s announcement on July 29, shares of Clear Blue Technologies jumped nearly 15 percent to close the trading session at $0.39. Meanwhile year-over-year, shares of the company have rose 160 percent.
Additionally, the trailing four quarter revenue for the company’s most recently announced quarter — Q1 2021 — was $7,244,648 which is an 87 per cent increase over the same period from the year before.
In other words, the company’s current share price is a bargain for the work it is doing. Similarly, Clear Blue Technologies’ Smart Off-Grid technology differentiates itself by providing an unprecedented level of performance and reliability — and the partnerships the company has notched recently are just the beginning of its long-term success.