Energy access

Katherine Lucey tells us how she is bringing light to sub-Saharan Africa with an army of female entrepreneurs: “No one should go to bed just because the lights go out.”

A new mandate awarded by Germany’s KfW to a consortium comprising Triple Jump, Persistent and GreenMax Capital Advisors will support new ways to decentralise electricity supply in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund, founded late 2019 and managed by Triple Jump, announced today it has made its first investments totalling $10mn in three off-grid solar providers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Millions of financial support have been mobilised for off-grid energy companies in need due to the Covid pandemic. But how do fund managers ensure it’s disbursed fast and effectively to those most in need?

An innovative financing deal by African renewables and microgrid provider PowerGen Renewable Energy in Nigeria could serve as a model for how private capital can be brought into the sector.

The provision of off-grid solar energy to households and small businesses in low-income countries has been one of the development success stories of the last decade.

Hussein Sefian, the founding partner of Acre Impact Capital, has a ‘big idea’: leveraging export credit finance to mobilise capital that can help solve Africa’s lack of critical infrastructure, from clean water to energy.

The emergence of a new range of guarantees for off-grid solar projects is boosting investor confidence while helping build local capacity to fund much-needed renewable energy projects.

With around 600 million Africans without access to the electricity grid, the market for off-grid home solar systems is expected to grow very fast. Yet, local financial institutions are still reluctant to finance the suppliers of these and other solar products. The Green 4 Access First Loss Facility, a new blended finance scheme, is trying to change this.

Fresh investments in Africa’s pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) energy market confirms investor interest in the sector is holding up – in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, and despite a couple of high-profile bankruptcies highlighting the challenging economics facing PAYGo companies.