Whilst African solar is still firmly an emerging market, investors have confirmed that issues remain with development finance, insofar as it is holding back the market from truly taking off. Whilst development finance institutions (DFIs) are a crucial part of allowing the market to find its feet, the continent’s economic infrastructure needs to move beyond the realm of development finance for commercial financiers to be enticed.
UGE International, a renewable energy firm specialising in the C&I space, has partnered with Export Development Canada (EDC) to create a construction finance facility for the funding of international solar projects.
The participation of venture capital (VC) investors seems to have cooled, while project funding has conversely seen a sharp rise, in the latest quarterly report into funding and mergers and acquisitions from Mercom Capital.
A panel of development finance institutions and project developers at the annual Africa Energy Forum on Friday discussed how they are shaping the continent’s emerging energy sector; in taking on the risk that commercial capital typically will not.
Canadian Solar has closed a deal worth £36.4 million (US$52.9 million) to refinance four UK solar power plants totalling over 40.2MW of installed capacity.
The US Department of Energy SunShot Initiative has launched the Orange Button programme that will establish unified datasets in an effort to reduce financing costs.
The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission are investigating the state’s largest utility, Hawiian Electric Co’s decision to cancel project contracts with embattled renewable energy company, SunEdison.
RES (Renewable Energy Systems) claims the company’s experience with structuring solar, wind and transmission finance deals has made successful financing of large-scale battery projects possible.
