Off the Grid by Design, a white paper written by Andre Veskimeister of LockersFirst, documents how The Courier Guy built and scaled the largest parcel locker network in Africa, which today has 2,500+ lockers. Recorded on site in Johannesburg in August 2026 with Rovenma Co-Founder & CEO Halim Sertbaş and The Courier Guy CEO Craig Pitchers, the study is based on 7 years of operating evidence rather than projections. Since its release, the white paper has been widely shared across the industry, including by Post & Parcel.
The paper follows the network’s growth from its launch in 2019, when 600 lockers were installed before a single advertisement went out. The first 1,000 lockers took 4 years, while the second 1,000 took just 1. With 3,000 lockers planned by the end of 2026, the network has grown entirely off-grid since 2025, with every new locker running on Rovenma’s autonomous, battery-powered Rovlocker R7.
At the core of this approach is Rovenma’s alkaline battery parcel locker, designed for a market shaped by unreliable grid power, security pressure and long distances. Instead of lithium or rechargeable batteries, the Rovlocker runs on alkaline battery packs. They are lighter and more cost-effective, and they carry no fire risk inside a metal locker in the African sun. The locker remains in sleep mode until a customer presses the wake-up button, delivering 2+ years of field life with every compartment used daily. Removing the need for a grid connection also simplified deployment: installation time fell from 3.5 hours to about 90 minutes, with no forklift or external contractor required.
The white paper also highlights how South Africa’s demanding conditions shaped the 7th-generation Rovlocker R7. These include Rovenma’s in-house designed locks, a composite roof and front console that cannot rust, a water management system developed together with The Courier Guy, an optional AC module, and frontal maintenance that allows servicing directly in the field. It concludes with 8 practical lessons for operators building parcel locker, PUDO and out-of-home delivery networks in emerging and infrastructure-constrained markets across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia.Rovenma thanks Andre Veskimeister and LockersFirst for this in-depth study and for sharing the story with the wider industry, and The Courier Guy for its trust and close collaboration. Rovenma also thanks Post & Parcel for featuring the white paper in its news coverage. Rovenma looks forward to continuing this partnership and to supporting more operators in building scalable, reliable parcel locker infrastructure for the future of last-mile delivery.
The full white paper is available here: rovenma_whitepaper
Read the Post & Parcel news: Rovenma & TCG Scale 2,500+ Off-Grid Lockers | Post & Parcel
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