Renewable Energy company juwi Renewable Energies has appointed former MD Greg Austin as Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regional director, effective October 1.

He has worked in the renewable energy sector since 2000 and joined juwi in 2012 as South Africa MD.

juwi Group board member Stephan Hansen says the EMEA region has seen some refocusing in line with the new strategic direction during the last years and juwi is starting to see the strategy pay off.

“We see excellent potential in a growing renewable market across the EMEA region and we want to capitalise on this.”

Austin built up the South African photovoltaic (PV) and wind business to be a market leader in project development; engineering, procurement and construction (EPC); and operations and maintenance (O&M) with close to 20% market share and a strong brand presence.

He also oversaw the restructuring of the operations and maintenance business with a local partner to position it for the long term, while expanding the operations and maintenance business to include third-party operations and maintenance clients.

He established the Cape Town office as the hub for the region’s hybrid business, while guiding the development of over 2 GW of onshore wind and solar PV projects in South Africa.

More recently, Austin has been supporting the development of new business strategies and models for the South African market in cooperation with juwi’s mother company MVV and with direct relevance for the EMEA region.

“I am sure that my technical, commercial and management background, project development and strategy development knowledge together with my experience of working in the EMEA team over the years, will allow me to quickly get up to speed with the priorities of this role and support the team to grow our business further,” he says.

Hansen says Austin has demonstrated his leadership in the challenging market environment of South Africa over the last eight years and knows juwi, as well as the EMEA management team, already, which will “certainly be very valuable in this role.”

juwi is active in the EMEA markets in South Africa, Greece and Italy, with an integrated business model from project development to EPC, and O&M.

juwi is also successfully positioned as a leader in the hybrid mining segment in Africa expanding juwi’s technical competence to the integration of storage technology. Currently, juwi EMEA’s 2021 and 2022 pipeline is over 1 200 MW a year in different stages of maturity, excluding projects currently under construction.

In addition, the EMEA region has 430 MW under long-term operations and maintenance contracts, with a pipeline of over 1 GW.