Friday, 4 December

Dear <<First Name>>

Sharing hard-earned knowledge and expertise with competitors runs against the grain of traditional business practice. But in the face of the environmental, social and economic challenges we all face together - and the speed with which action must be taken to address them - collaboration is nothing less than essential.

CrossBoundary Energy Access’s decision this week to open source the financing approach for mini-grids that it developed with its partners is an excellent example of tearing up the rulebook for the greater good. By sharing a white paper and other key documents, CBEA hopes to accelerate universal energy access in Africa by helping to unlock access to the $1 trillion infrastructure capital markets that mini-grids need to scale.

I applaud the company’s move and feel proud as REPP’s investment manager to have partnered with them in this process. 

Now it is up to Africa’s mini-grids sector to seize this opportunity to learn from - and build on - this shared knowledge to help improve the deployment of capital the sector needs to scale up and bring energy access to hundreds of millions of people by 2030.

Cheers

Geoff

West Africa

Benin: Consortium led by Eiffage RMT to construct 25MW Illoulofin solar plant (PV-Magazine)
- Construction will be finalised in the next 15 months with €60.8 million in investment being provided by the EU, AFD and SBEE.

Ghana: Recently established Energy Sector Recovery Programme has saved US$5 billion so far (ESI)
- With help from the World Bank, this programme has renegotiated PPA agreements with IPPs.

Mali: Phanes Group to build 93MW Touna solar plant (Afrik21)
- The project is expected to require an investment of €106.4 million and will supply the grid for 25 years.

Nigeria: 700kW C&I solar plant becomes the largest facility of it kind in Nigeria (ESI)
- Empower New Energy and Rensource teamed up to create a unique PPA with Premium Poultry Farms near Abuja.

Nigeria: The EU has added a further €10 million to the Climate Investor 1 financing facility (ESI)
- Latest investment adds to original commitment of €30 million and is expected to primarily benefit the Nigerian market.

East Africa

Kenya: Partnership to install solar-powered desalination plants (ESI)
- Climate Fund Managers (CFM) and Solar Water Solutions (SWS) will finance and co-develop the installation of up to 200 desalination systems in Kitui County.

Kenya: IPPs dropped in favour of KenGen taking over the development of the Menengai geothermal plants (East African)
- IPPs sluggishness has been criticised as hindering Kenyan development plans, with 105MW of power delayed since 2018.

Uganda: Transmission lines upgraded as the 600MW Karuma dam comes online (Energy Mix Report)
- The new lines will enable the export of power to neighbouring countries and improve electricity access, lower transmission losses, increase power efficiency, reliability, stability and quality of supply countrywide.

Africa - general

CAR-DRC: AfDB finances the rehabilitation of the 15MW Boali hydroelectric plant (Afrik21)
- AfDB will provide US$3.5 million to finance the rehabilitation project and an electricity interconnection project with the DRC.

General: Off-grid renewables success linked to investment in local currency says AfDB report (ESI)
- Local currency debt financing has a number of advantages although it is still limited due to risk profiling by local institutions.

General: Africa's power demand to keep rising by 4-5% per annum (Bizcommunity)
- Electricity generation has grown an average of 4.8% per annum since 2008 mainly driven by countries in North and South-East Africa.

Mini-grids: Africa’s first project financing facility for mini-grids open sources its financing approach (CBEA)
- CrossBoundary Energy Access (CBEA) developed the approach with its partners, including REPP, and hopes open sourcing it accelerate universal energy access in Africa.

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