Distributed power has outgrown the word rural

Maud Watelet of Adjuva Partners begins a second term as President of the Alliance for Renewable Electrification, elected at its 25 June General Meeting alongside four board members, with a 2026 mandate that runs from first-time connections and productive use through to commercial installations and grid integration.

The clearest signal from the Alliance for Renewable Electrification’s General Meeting on 25 June sits in the association’s own letterhead. The body long known as the Alliance for Rural Electrification now carries a name to match a wider brief, and it confirmed the leadership taking it there, re-electing Maud Watelet of Adjuva Partners as President and electing four board members: Ayu Abdullah of COMET, Pierre Bucaille of MyJouleBox and Stephane Tromilin of Schneider Electric, alongside Watelet herself.

Watelet founded Adjuva Partners, an advisory firm working across investment strategy, due diligence and valuation, and before that originated and managed energy access investments at EDFI MC ElectriFI, principally in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. Her second term follows a first that included what she described as a record-breaking Energy Access Investment Forum in Nairobi earlier this year.

The mandate she returns to is broader than the one she was first elected on. ARE’s expanded mission for 2026 covers the full span of renewable electrification, from energy access and productive use through commercial and industrial applications to modern grid and utility integration. That reach reflects where the association’s members already operate. The companies that built their businesses on mini-grids and standalone systems are increasingly the same ones wiring factories, serving commercial offtakers and integrating with utilities, and their association is moving with them.

The meeting also recorded the association’s thanks to outgoing board member Gillian-Alexandre Huart of ENGIE Energy Access, while chief executive David Lecoque said the renewed board reflects the ambition driving ARE and a mandate to expand the business avenues open to its members.

Watelet set the destination in her acceptance: an association that remains “a powerful force for integrated renewable electrification in emerging markets.”