Shandong Dejian Group: Solar mills improve people's livelihood in Africa and develop business cards in Africa

 Company profile
 
Shandong Dejian Group Co. Ltd (Dejian Group) is headquartered in Dezhou City, Shandong Province. It is a super-class enterprise with a total qualification for national construction engineering construction and municipal public project general contracting.
 
Established in 1953, Dejian Group was a local state-owned enterprise and reformed into a limited liability company in 1999 without any state capital remained. It subordinates over 20 branches and subsidiaries now with registered capital of 520 million yuan and total assets over 3 billion yuan and over 2,000 various engineering and management staffs in total.Dejian Group has passed the "ISO9001, ISO14001, OHSAS18001" international management system certifications, and is qualified for international engineering contracting and labor export rights and the qualification for Level-A implementation of the national foreign aid package.
 
Over the years, Dejian Group adheres to the core philosophy of To make achievements with morality and win with integrity, with its business covering most provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China. The company has branches in more than 10 countries in Asia, Africa and the Europe, etc., delivering to the society with thousands of quality, safe, humanistic and environmental construction products.
 
 Challenges
 
Food shortage is an important problem for Africa. Zambia and other countries mainly grow crops such as corn. Due to the shortage of mills, the business of cornmeal grinding was monopolized by a few people, causing the high price of cornmeal. Although the local government wants to solve this problem, it faces the shortage of funds and lack of energy.
 
Zambia relies mainly on hydropower for electricity. However, the lack of rainfall in recent years has aggravated the power shortage in Zambia, and about 4 million rural people survive without electricity. In fact, Zambia has abundant solar energy resources and has not yet been fully developed. Therefore, innovative power generation methods by using green energy such as solar energy, to generate electricity has become a top priority for the Zambian government.
 
Starting from the traditional housing construction project, Dejian Group has been operating in the African market for many years. Facing the development of Africa, how to make use of its own industrial advantages and achieve new breakthroughs in the African market business becomes a realistic challenge.
 
Solutions
 
In order to improve the life of people in rural Africa and develop the African economy, the Dejian Group combines the advantages of Texas, Sun City, and years of solar power development experience, and develops the integrated project of solar mills and irrigation suitable for rural areas in Africa. The project covers photovoltaic power generation systems, irrigation systems, fish pond systems, and grain storage warehouses. Dejian Group is responsible for the planning and design, construction and post-commissioning operations, and personnel training of the project.
 
The solar mill covers an area of 45 square meters and the grinding system consists of a 15 kW solar photovoltaic system (consisting of 60 pieces of 250 watt solar panels), one control integrated system and one set of corn flour milling machine with a daily output of two tons. All of them is produced in China and exported by China.
 
At the beginning of the project, the Zambian staff faced many difficulties, such as,they do not know how to install and operate the equipment. The Dejian Group helps the Zambian staff to master the skills by organizing training.
 
Innovating in financing model. In the less developed countries, the poor financial state has greatly affected the progress of the project. Under the active promotion of Dejian Group, the F+EPC (financing + design, procurement, construction general contracting) model is introduced, and 85% of the financing is provided by China's National Development Bank. 15% of the funds are provided by Zambia. The Dejian Group is responsible for the design, procurement and construction, ensuring the smooth implementation of the project. It also provides a financing model for the development of similar projects.
 
Achievement
 
Social benefit
 
The entire project plans to build 2,000 photovoltaic mills across Zambia, and half of them are currently in production. By the middle of 2018, the entire project will be put into production. The price of cornmeal produced by the photovoltaic mill is one-third lower than the previous price, which greatly reduces the processing cost of local cornmeal, improves the processing level and processing capacity of cornmeal, and has been warmly welcomed by local residents.
 
The over-produced electricity from the solar mill is also used for irrigation, water harvesting and farming in Zambia. At the same time, each Zambia solar mill provides at least 10 jobs for local people. According to preliminary estimates, the construction of 2,000 solar mills will provide employment opportunities for at least 20,000 local people, improving the income of residents and achieving the goal of poverty reduction.
 
Before and after the local residents were employed, Dejian Group will select excellent management personnel to provide pre- and post-employment training for the employees, improving their operational and management capabilities. The project provides a total of at least 30,000 technical and management trainings, which will train a group of skilled workers in Zambia to promote the level of local industrialization.
 
 Economic benefit
 
The total cost of the project is about 200 million US dollars, which is highly valued by the Zambian government. President Edgar Lungu issued the first presidential decree for it and often went to the construction site to inspect.
 
The solar mill project has become one of the important platforms for Dejian Group to promote its internationalization. It has laid the foundation for Dejian Group to enter the field of new energy construction in Africa and promote solar energy projects and Chinese technology, opening up new ways for further deepening the development of the African market. Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and other countries have signed a memorandum of understanding with Dejian Group on cooperation of solar mill projects.
 
Prospect
 
With the joint efforts of the African people, Shandong Dejian Group can gradually carry out the integrated projects of modern mills and irrigation in African countries with its own advantages and the Belt and Road Initiative, and build a model project of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.