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Investors line up to meet developers at REPP Academy
Investors turn to online networking to find new renewable energy deals in Africa
London, 13 October 2020: The Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP), funded by the UK Government’s International Climate Finance, is to stage a series of virtual networking sessions connecting leading investors with on-grid developers operating in countries in Africa.
Nine investors, including AfDB and Finnfund, have signed up to the online event to explore investment opportunities with experienced developers in the clean energy IPP market in Africa, as well as its rising stars. GET.invest and IRENA are also taking part, representing platforms that are focused on matchmaking between developers and funders and technical assistance providers.
The sessions are part of REPP Academy 2020, a two-week capacity building and networking programme being run by REPP’s investment manager Camco Clean Energy (Camco), which starts today.
Geoff Sinclair, Managing Director of Camco, said: “Africa’s renewable energy sector represents a huge potential market for investors, but despite a definite upsurge in investments the current rate of activity falls a long way short of what is needed if we are to meet global climate and energy access goals. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to make the situation worse, with many investors slowing down their activities.
“That’s why we’ve set up these networking and open dialogue opportunities: to bring these amazing projects and developers to the attention of the investment world and help accelerate the funding flow into the sector.
“That so many leading investors have signed up to these sessions speaks volumes in terms of how they see the sector. They clearly acknowledge the resilience of the market and agree with Camco/REPP’s position that we need to accelerate rather than slow down.”
Tuomas Suurpää, Senior Investment Manager at Finnfund, said: “Finnfund is committed to investing in businesses which mitigate climate change and help people in developing countries adapt to it.
“Renewable energy is one of our key sectors and thanks to our development-oriented mandate and our capacity to absorb risk, we and other DFIs are well positioned to invest in healthy businesses, even when the risks are on the rise.”
REPP Academy 2020 is a capacity-building event designed to help REPP’s on-grid investees successfully advance their projects and deliver clean power across countries in Africa. As well as the networking sessions with investors, investees will take part in a mix of short presentations, group discussions, and one-on-one meetings with peers and members of the REPP team.
Franz Kottulinsky, Director of REPP investee company Rift Valley Energy Group, said: “Having worked with REPP successfully on the financing for our 2.4MW wind project, we are very excited to be part of this year’s REPP Academy.
“This will provide us not only with relevant training but also with an interesting business network, which we can use to explore further financing options for our new 4MW hydro and rural electrification project in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania.”
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Notes to editors
Media contact
For all media enquiries and interview requests, please contact media@camco.energy or call +44 7768 275731.
About the UK’s International Climate Finance
International Climate Finance is the UK Government’s commitment to support developing countries to respond to climate change. At the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in September 2019 the UK announced a doubling of its International Climate Finance from £5.8bn over the period 2016-2020 to £11.6bn over the period 2021-2025. This places the UK amongst the world’s leading providers of climate finance. Programmes are focused on:
- Building the resilience of the poorest people and communities
- Building sustainable cities and transport systems
- Unlocking clean and affordable energy for all
- Halting deforestation and preventing irreversible biodiversity loss
Since 2011, UK ICF investments have helped over 66 million people to cope with the effects of climate change; reduced or avoided 31 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and mobilised £4.1 billion of public and £2.2 billion of private finance for climate change purposes in developing countries.
About REPP
The Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) works to mobilise private sector development activity – and investment – in small to medium-sized projects (typically up to 25MW). It is supported with £148m funding from the UK’s International Climate Finance through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
To date, REPP has agreed contracts with 26 renewable energy projects across 13 countries, employing five different technologies (solar home systems, solar PV mini-grids, grid-connected solar PV, run-of-river hydro, and onshore wind).
About Camco Clean Energy
Camco Clean Energy (Camco) is an investment manager that specialises in climate finance and meaningful sustainable development impact in emerging markets. Its long-established position within Africa’s renewable energy sector enables the company to provide project developers and sponsors with a trusted combination of global access and local presence, enabling them to source the right financing solutions to develop and build projects.
Camco was formed in Nairobi over 30 years ago and, since then, has provided creative finance solutions to 180 projects worth $15 billion.
