About us

Roots in Lebanon, projects across Africa and the Middle East

Barouk Energy is an independent advisory and development firm for solar and storage. We help energy users, developers, investors and public bodies decide whether, what and how to build, and we are paid by the client alone.

7: markets across Africa and the Middle East
4: offices: Madrid, Rabat, Abuja and Beirut
4: working languages: English, French, Arabic and Spanish
0: commissions from suppliers, on any project

Who we are

Across Africa and the Middle East, businesses are replacing expensive diesel with solar, and most of the advice they receive comes from the people selling the equipment.

Barouk Energy offers the other kind: advice paid for by the client alone, from people who have worked on projects from the first contract to daily operation. We take no commission from suppliers, so any supplier can win and our only interest is the client’s.

Capability statement (PDF)

The team

Samih Kalakeche

Founder and principal

Samih has worked on renewable projects from almost every side: negotiating the power contracts, developing the sites, designing the plants and managing them in operation.

Experience

ABEI EnergyTook a solar and wind portfolio of more than 500 MW from greenfield to ready-to-build, including land, permits and grid connection.
TotalEnergiesAssessed and negotiated physical and virtual power purchase agreements, and the financial models behind them.
RatedPowerAdvised developers on utility-scale plant design, energy yield and layout optimisation.
Operating portfoliosDigital management of operating wind, solar and storage assets.

Education: MSc in Renewable Energy Transition, Universidad Europea. BSc in Industrial Engineering, recognised in Spain.
Languages: English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
Base: Madrid, with site work across Africa and the Middle East.

Amine Cherradi

Director of Business Development

Amine leads our business development across Africa and the Middle East. His background is in sales for the power sector, across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Experience

RatedPowerBusiness development for solar plant design software across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.
Power sectorService sales and tendering for power equipment and services.

Education: Industrial and management engineer.
Languages: French, Arabic, Spanish and English.
Base: Madrid and Rabat.

The Lebanese spirit

Four things we bring from home

Built to last

A cedar grows slowly and stands for a very long time. We give advice meant to hold for a plant’s whole working life, not just until the contract is signed.

Resourceful by necessity

When Lebanon’s grid supplied only a few hours of power a day, households and businesses installed 663 MW of solar in 2022 alone. We design for the conditions a site really has: weak grids, generators and fuel that costs too much.

A bridge between markets

Lebanese families have lived and worked in West Africa since the late nineteenth century, and across the Gulf for generations. Barouk works the same way: between Europe, Africa and the Middle East, in four languages.

Straight counsel

Good advice from a neighbour is given plainly, in the listener’s interest. Ours is paid for by the client alone, so it can be just as direct.

Why “Barouk”?

Barouk is a village in Lebanon’s Chouf mountains, 52 kilometres southeast of Beirut. Its spring earned it the name “land of good”, and above it grows the Barouk cedar forest, in a reserve that holds a quarter of Lebanon’s remaining cedar forests.

The cedar is the tree on Lebanon’s flag. It is also our mark: a cedar drawn in four lines.

1,943 m: Height of Mount Barouk, which gives the village its name
25%: Share of Lebanon’s remaining cedar forests inside the Shouf reserve
2005: Year the reserve joined UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere programme

A Lebanese cedar tree with wide, layered branches in the Chouf mountains — Cedar in the Chouf, Lebanon. Photograph: Tim Broadbent / Unsplash

A message from our founder

The first conversation is free, and you will get a straight answer, even when the answer is not to build.

Samih Kalakeche, Founder and principal

Tell us about your project

Sources

NextSavings estimate