Saint Gobain unveils experience centre in Kenya

Denis Simonin - CFO, Director of Corporate Business Development Saint-Gobain Sub-Saharan Africa Delegation, and Arch. Nathan Kureba OGW Chairman, Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors of Kenya (BORAQS).

Made to be informative and engaging, the experience center is fitted with digital access points to enhance practical experiences.

“The experience center in Kenya aims to be a place where our different stakeholders within the construction sector feel welcome, a place where they can share expertise and where we can listen to their needs,” says Sachin Ramkasoon, Business Development Director for East Africa.

Comfort has been given top priority at the experience centre with a mobile application, which enables the visitor to experience various acoustic performances of conventional wall compared to Gyproc walls.

The building itself has been designed to depict Saint-Gobain’s innovative solutions.

From the floor to the ceiling and walls, the experience center and office space incorporate different Saint-Gobain materials that express comfort. The flooring area has been coated with Saint-Gobain Weber self levelling screed.

Saint-Gobain Gyproc and Ecophon acoustic ceiling panels were installed to improve acoustic. Visitors will also be surprised to discover laminated glass solutions that can switch from translucent to transparent immediately thanks to a liquid crystal.

In Kenya, Saint Gobain solutions are evident in areas such as:

The new Booking.com offices that have been fitted with Ecophon Solo™ acoustic ceiling panels. It creates open spaces where people can work and perform with minimum noise.

The Palazzo which has been dressed with about 8000 m2 of Saint-Gobain glazing.

The new Uber offices benefited from Saint-Gobain partitions and insulation solutions.

The IMAX Cinema at Garden City has been constructed with Saint-Gobain drywalls, insulation and ceiling systems.

In 2017, as part of the Water and Sanitation Service Improvement Project, Saint-Gobain PAM provided 45 km of pipes to supply water and sanitation services to Mombasa, Gongoni, Kakuyuni, Malindi and Kilifi.

Saint Gobain has helped in job creation and offers a wide range of training courses to boost skills among professionals within the construction industry.

We have already trained 170 since the start of the year mainly within the construction industry. Our training has concentrated around installation of ceilings, drywalling and insulation,says Mr Ramkasoon.

Ethiopia's Assela wind farm project gets financial impetus

An agreement signed between the two countries, Denmark will provide a loan of USD 201 million to finance construction of the wind farm.

The money will be released through the country development arm-Danish International Development Agency.

The loan agreement was signed in Ethiopia’s capital between Mette Thygesen, Ambassador of Denmark to Ethiopia and Admasu Nebebe, Deputy Minister, Ethiopia Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation (MoFEC) in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Located 150km from the capital Addis Ababa,on the edge of the Rift Valley, the Assela Wind farm is expected to cost over €150m to build.

The wind farm is part of Ethiopia’s plan to diversify its energy sources to support its quickly growing manufacturing sector.

The wider plan is to increase electricity generation capacity from the current 4,200 MW to about 17,300 MW by 2020 using hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass and solar energy.

In line with this vision, Ethiopia is constructing a huge hydropower dam on the Nile which upon completion would be the biggest in Africa.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as it is being called is projected to produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity for both domestic use and for exportation.

Work on the Assela wind farm project is expected to start later this year. Completion date for the project has been set for 2020.