The Center is located at Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology  that focuses on Providing Research, Training, Education and Local Engineering Capacity building to society in the field of renewable energy. The center is established under Higher Education Partnerships in sub-Saharan Africa program which is funded by The Royal Academy of Engineering.

Access to electricity is directly correlated to higher economic activity, better access to education, and improved healthcare (UN, Human Development Report 2010). However, according to the 2016 report "Tanzania Energy Access Situation", only 67.5% of the population has access to electricity with the rural areas at just 49.3%. More than 50.7% of the rural population relies only on distributed generators for electricity with some of them not having access to electricity at all.