Search
SNV at #GOGSFE26
Join us at GOGSFE 2026 in exploring the next chapter of off-grid energy and what energy makes possible.
From 27 to 29 October, SNV will participate in the Global Off-Grid Solar Forum and Expo (GOGSFE 2026) in Kigali, Rwanda, alongside partners working to advance energy access and productive use across Africa.
The next chapter of off-grid energy is about what energy makes possible. As momentum around energy access and productive use grows, attention is increasingly turning to how energy can support livelihoods, businesses, jobs, and local economies.
At GOGSFE 2026, we will contribute experience from across our programmes and partnerships to conversations about how energy access can reach further and endure, how integrated approaches can connect energy with agriculture and food systems, and how the right capital at the right time can support businesses in growing and reaching underserved markets.
Partnering for impact
Collaboration is essential to extending energy access and enabling its productive use. At GOGSFE, SNV will join partners and businesses through the CROWD Corridor and Agri–Energy Coalition. The CROWD Corridor will highlight how grants and technical assistance can help energy access companies attract investment and grow, while the Agri–Energy Coalition, including the Power for Food Partnership, will showcase businesses working at the intersection of energy and agriculture and how energy can support productive activities across agricultural value chains.
The Power for Food Partnership brings together regenerative agriculture and the productive use of renewable energy to strengthen food systems, support smallholder farmers and agribusinesses, and create economic opportunities across East Africa.
Join our session
Explore SNV’s GOGSFE 2026 programme and plan the conversations you want to join. Browse the opening 27 October schedule below, or jump directly to the highlights for:
Tuesday, 27 October
ESMAP working group session to launch the subsidy lab
Tuesday, 27 October | 13:15-14:45 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, AD12
The end user subsidies lab brings stakeholders together to pool knowledge, expertise, and funding to design smarter, more effective subsidies that make energy access more affordable.
Organisers: GOGLA, ESMAP
Productive uses of energy: Powering people and prosperity
Tuesday, 27 October | 13:45-15:00 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, MH3
Productive use has become central to the economic case for off-grid solar. This session examines what the evidence shows about the jobs, enterprise growth and agricultural incomes that off-grid solar enables: where impact is proven and replicable, where it reaches its limits, and what needs to change to deliver more.
Organisers: GOGLA, ESMAP
CROWD coordination and harmonisation workshop
Tuesday, 27 October | 13:30-16:00 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, AD11
How can we reduce repetitive due diligence as companies move from early-stage support towards commercial capital? This interactive workshop will bring together funders, investors and companies to test an emerging due diligence framework, explore what could realistically be standardised or mutually recognised, and identify practical solutions to reduce unnecessary duplication. NB. There is a limit of one space per organisation.
Organisers: Open Capital
Wednesday, 28 October
Powering the veggie economy (closed-door event)
Wednesday, 28 October | 07:30-09:00 | Location: Lemigo Hotel Kigali (invite only)
How can catalytic finance unlock investment at the intersection of productive energy and food systems? This invitation-only working session brings together investors and investment-ecosystem actors to explore the architecture of a potential Nexus Catalytic Financing Vehicle, using the vegetable economy as a practical starting point. Through a hands-on Capital Cone exercise, participants will examine opportunities across solar irrigation and production, cooling and cold chains, and energy-enabled processing and value addition.
Organisers: WHH, EST. Supported by: GOGLA, Acumen, REEEP, Ag-En Coalition, SNV
Before the pump: Putting water smart agriculture at the heart of solar irrigation
Wednesday, 28 October | 09:00-10:15 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, MH3
Solar irrigation programmes often begin with an energy solution. But what if we started with the farmer, the farming system and the water resource? This session explores how energy, agriculture and water actors can work together—from sustainable farming and soil health to groundwater management, finance and market access—to strengthen farmer incomes while ensuring solar irrigation is commercially viable and environmentally sustainable.
Organisers: IWMI, Practical Action, YSDN, SNV
Sponsored by: Agri-Energy Coalition
Battery-as-a-service at scale: Commercial maturity, future technology evolution, and Mission 300
Wednesday, 28 October | 11:00-12:15 | Location: AD11(invite only)
This session will explore how battery rental models and energy-as-a-service approaches can become commercially viable at scale, and how advances in technology can support their future growth.
Organisers: MOPO and bPOWERd
Solutions lab - From framework to action: Testing the PUE quickstart guide to design and launch PUE programme
Wednesday, 28 October | 13:30-14:45 | Location: AD12
ESMAP’s new PUE Design Guide helps governments and development partners design programmes around market needs and lasting outcomes, rather than technology alone. Panellists will explore the conditions needed to turn energy access into economic opportunity, including finance, skills, markets, and infrastructure, and share lessons on what makes PUE programmes succeed in practice.
Organisers: ESMAP
How can partnerships and market linkages enable businesses to scale?
Wednesday, 28 October | 11:00-12:15 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, MH3
With real-world examples from entrepreneurs, this session explores how innovations in software, partnerships and market linkages are addressing key barriers in the productive use of energy (PURE).
Organisers: PREO, REEEP, WRI, EST, SNV
Sponsored by: The Energy Agriculture Coalition
Financing the agri-energy nexus: Breaking institutional silos
Wednesday, 28 October | 13:30-14:45 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, AD11
Run as a live investment committee, this session puts three real agri-energy cases, spanning solar irrigation, captive power for agri-related activity, and cold storage, in front of investors to debate how each would actually be assessed within their own institutions. The aim is to surface concrete steps to close the gap between agriculture and energy financing, rather than engage in theoretical discussion. Register here.
Sponsored by The Agri-Energy Coalition
Thursday, 29 October
What makes agri-energy businesses thrive
Thursday, 29 October | 9:00-10:15 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, MH3
The potential of productive use of renewable energy is well established, yet building commercially viable business models remains a challenge. Why? Drawing on evidence from multiple recent studies, this session unpacks what it actually takes for PURE companies to reach sustainable profitability and scale, with concrete takeaways on what funders, policymakers and ecosystem actors can do differently to support lasting business growth. Discussions will explore how cross-sector results-based financing (RBF) is evolving, where it fits best, and what complementary support can help earlier-stage firms grow alongside it.
Organisers: Acumen, The Future of Energy, Energy Saving Trust, SNV
Uninvestable? The untapped market of humanitarian, fragile and conflict-affected settings
Thursday 29 October | 9:00-10:15 | Location: Kigali Convention Centre, Main Stage
Reaching the last frontier of energy access means working in fragile and conflict-affected settings, home to more than 460 million of the 600+ million people still without electricity. This session brings together the private sector, investors, donors, and NGO/UN partners to explore what it takes to build markets and reach communities in these contexts.
Organisers: GPA, Ashden, EST, Last Mile Climate/Solco, NORCAP, Practical Action, Prosper Global
