Search results

Dutch development finance institution FMO has signed a $15m senior loan for African and India-focused off-grid provider D.Light Design, with $5m from the Building Prospects envelope and a $10m FMO-A loan. The majority of the loan is denominated in local currency, comprising Nigerian naira and Kenyan shillings.

Mini-grid financing facility CrossBoundary Energy Access has raised a $25m senior debt facility. CrossBoundary is looking to raise $150m in total to finance a portfolio of mini-grids primarily in Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia.

The Ugandan government has signed an agreement with Gridworks that will see the British government-owned developer and financier provide up to $90m of equity funding to upgrade four key substations. A key goal of the upgrades is to increase the grid’s ability to supply large industrial offtakers and export power to Kenya and DR Congo. Gridworks said the project was “one of the only privately financed” transmission developments in sub-Saharan Africa so far.

Serengeti Energy has secured a $10.6m, 17-year term loan from the Private Infrastructure Development Group’s Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) for the 7.8MW Nyamwamba II run-of-river hydroelectric power (HEP) plant.

While advocacy groups are posing questions about the funding of the Lake Albert upstream scheme – and putting pressure on banks not to participate  – operator TotalEnergies on 9 June told African Energy that project financing for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) was being provided by shareholder equity and external debt, which is “being arranged with interested international financial institutions”.

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) project has emerged as an important element in French NGO Reclaim Finance (RF)’s campaign against the financing of oil and gas projects. RF campaign manager Guillaume Pottier told African Energy that the group was aiming “to ensure financial institutions no longer directly or indirectly support the development of new oil and gas”.

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline has boosted regional energy ambitions and is poised to swell the treasuries of Tanzania and Uganda, but while the project’s supporters laud its potential economic and developmental benefits it has also ignited a fierce debate over hydrocarbons financing and how deals are structured in the energy transition age.

UK-based climate fund manager Camco Clean Energy has partnered with Energy Peace Partners (EPP) to manage the Peace Renewable Energy Credit (P-Rec) Aggregation Fund.

Nairobi-based Serengeti Energy has said it sees opportunities to develop more hydroelectric power (HEP) plants in Uganda, despite a risk of oversupply in the market in the near term.

Energy and mineral development minister Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu has said South Africa’s Eskom Uganda will no longer operate and maintain the 200MW Kiira and 180MW Nalubaale hydroelectric power (HEP) plants, when their 20-year concessions are concluded next year.

Nairobi-based Camco Clean Energy’s new specialised finance company Spark Energy Services is looking to fund solar PV and wind plants, plus energy efficiency initiatives for commercial and industrial (C&I) developers. Spark’s ‘impact-led’ approach intends to enable local developers in sub-Saharan markets to build scale and their balance sheets, in turn creating sustainable C&I businesses

The final investment decision on TotalEnergies’ Lake Albert development – combining the  Tilenga-Kingfisher upstream oil project in Uganda and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) taking oil for export from Tanzania comes as a major boost for East Africa’s energy ambitions and ends a long wait for the host governments eager to capture substantial new revenue inflows

A newly-commissioned mini-grid on Lake Victoria is acting as a testbed for the French energy giant’s approach to mini-grids, with a focus on promoting industrial development to boost electricity use, writes Dan Marks

The World Bank Group is seeking consultants to plan, design and supervise the construction of electricity connection projects as part of the grid expansion and connectivity component of the Electricity Access Scale-up Project (EASP) in Uganda. 

Prizes and league tables should often be treated with great caution (as underlined by Nobel laureate Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s war in Tigray), but credit should be given when it is due and, in that context, Uganda’s fourth consecutive first place in the African Development Bank (AfDB)’s Electricity Regulatory Index should be acknowledged as a triumph for the rule of law and sound management.