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More than 90% of Nigerian households still cook with firewood, charcoal or kerosene. The smoke from those fuels harms health, and the fuels themselves strain forests and family budgets. Okey Esse decided to attack that problem with engineering, not advocacy. He is the founder and chief executive of Powerstove Energy, a clean-energy company that builds smokeless cookstoves capable of generating their own electricity. His name is trending because of a major funding win in 2026. This biography explains who he is, how he built the company and why investors are backing it.
Who Is Okey Esse?
Okey Esse is a Nigerian engineer, social entrepreneur and clean-energy advocate. He founded Powerstove Energy in 2018 and leads it as CEO. The company designs, manufactures and distributes cookstoves that burn far less biomass than an open fire, while producing electricity as a by-product of cooking. He is also a co-founder of a mobility venture, Esse Mobility, where he serves as chief technology officer.
Okey Esse’s Age and Early Life
No official source publishes Esse’s date of birth. An interview from 2020 gave his age as 42, which suggests he is now in his late forties. That is an estimate, not a confirmed figure. He has spent his career in Nigeria, and the cooking conditions he saw growing up shaped his work.
Okey Esse’s Education
Professional records show that Esse studied physics and electronics at the University of Jos. That training matters. A stove that produces electricity is an electronics problem as much as a combustion problem, and his background sits exactly where the two meet.
Career Before Powerstove
Esse was an entrepreneur long before Powerstove. He co-founded Passionate Care Foundation, a nonprofit he has led as president, and held executive roles at Ananya Multitech and Topweb Network. He also serves as Chief Innovation Officer and Managing Director at Peachwater Consulting.
The pattern is consistent. He builds organisations that solve practical problems, and he combines technical skill with a willingness to run the business side.
How Powerstove Began
The company’s origin is tied to personal loss. Esse lost his mother to a respiratory illness linked to long exposure to smoke from firewood, an experience shared by many women in rural communities and food vendors in cities. That loss turned a technical interest into a mission.
Powerstove launched in 2018 in a market where many buyers distrust locally developed technology. Esse has credited tenacity for getting the company through that early scepticism.
How the Powerstove Technology Works
The stove uses a precision airflow system that injects the right amount of oxygen to burn fuel completely. According to the company, it uses about 70% less biomass than traditional cooking methods and generates 50 watts of continuous power, enough to charge phones and run lights.
Powerstove also produces its own fuel, called Goodlife Pellets, made from non-recyclable paper, wood and agricultural by-products. The company says the pellets cost about 60% less than firewood and 80% less than charcoal.
The company also says it was the first clean cookstove fitted with a cloud-based IoT system. That system tracks cooking in real time, including the biomass saved, black carbon avoided and electricity produced. This data matters commercially because it lets the company measure emissions reductions and pay users for them. Powerstove pays stove users in US dollars for cooking with its product, which links the business to the global carbon market.
Funding, Partnerships and Scale
Esse completed the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s entrepreneurship programme and later won the 2019 TEF Founder’s Den. Powerstove went on to attract investment from GreenTec Capital Partners and, in 2022, a $1 million grant from the Shell Foundation and the UK aid-backed Transforming Energy Access programme.
The company has also worked with NASENI, Nigeria’s national science and engineering agency, and the energy company ENI to expand production. Esse has said the main factory makes between 10,000 and 15,000 stoves a month, with capacity to reach 20,000 and, at full scale, up to 40,000. Powerstove offers 22 models for rural, semi-urban and urban households, and upgrades have cut its product return rate from about 5% to under 1%.
The Cascador Pitch Day Win
This is the reason his name is trending. Cascador is an impact-focused accelerator for growth-stage founders in Africa. At its 2026 Pitch Day in Lagos, it deployed more than $5 million to seven entrepreneurs. Powerstove received ₦1.8 billion in debt financing, about $1.2 million.
Debt, rather than equity, is a telling choice. It suggests lenders see a business with revenue, assets and inventory that can support repayment. Cascador also says it prioritises established companies with proven traction. For Esse, the award follows his company’s earlier recognition as Best Impact Award winner at Cascador Nigeria.
Family and Personal Life
Esse keeps his family life private. No reliable source documents a spouse or children, so this article lists none. Readers should treat with caution any website that makes such claims without a verifiable basis.
Okey Esse’s Net Worth
No credible publication has reported a verified net worth for Esse. Figures found online are guesses, and many confuse the funding Powerstove has raised with his personal wealth. Capital raised by a company belongs to the company, and founders, lenders and investors each hold separate claims. Until a reputable financial outlet documents a number, the accurate answer is that it is unknown.
What His Journey Teaches
Three lessons stand out. First, personal experience can point to a problem that spreadsheets miss. Esse built a product around a loss he understood directly. Second, a product that delivers several benefits at once is easier to sell. The stove cooks food, charges devices and earns carbon income. Third, patient capital matters. Debt financing rewards companies that have already proven they can sell and deliver.
