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Investec Bank Ltd and United Kingdom Climate Investments (UKCI) are investing R500m ($36.5m) each in a new renewable energy investment vehicle called Revego Africa Energy Ltd. The fund will be managed by Revego Fund Managers Ltd, a new majority black-owned fund manager which has Investec as the anchor investor. Revego aims to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in H1 this year with a target valuation of R2bn.

Mozambique-based off-grid solar company SolarWorks! has agreed a $2m multi-currency debt facility organised by specialist off-grid debt firm SunFunder and US-based currency hedging company MFX Solutions. SolarWorks! will use the facility for working capital to expand its operations in the country. The company has been active in Mozambique since 2011 and recently began operating in Malawi. It provides a range of solar devices, from basic systems comprising lights and charging points to more powerful systems for small businesses and middle-income households. The facility is MFX Solutions’ first in Mozambique.

Mini-grid financing facility CrossBoundary Energy Access (CBEA) has reached first close with commitments from the Rockefeller Foundation and Ceniarth. CBEA has raised $16m to invest in mini-grids serving around 170,000 people. The facility will initially target Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia, as markets that have supportive regulatory frameworks for mini-grids.

Kampala-based off-grid solar company SolarNow has closed a $9m receivables financing facility arranged by specialist debt arranger SunFunder. The facility used SunFunder’s structured asset finance instrument, with money raised from co-lenders responsAbility and Oikocredit.

The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has issued a general procurement notice for the Nigeria Electrification Project, which is funded by the African Development Bank. The project has four components and bid documents are expected to be issued in April. Component one will support private sector solar hybrid mini-grids in areas with high economic growth potential through a minimum subsidy tender. The work specifically targets 105,000 households and 20,000 businesses. Some 15 mini-grid operators are likely to be procured.

Off-grid solar company BBOXX announced on 13 January that Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), part of Old Mutual Alternative Investments, has agreed an investment of $31m to acquire a minority stake in BBOXX’s operating companies in Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Rwanda. The investment was made by AIIM’s African Infrastructure Investment Fund 3 and will allow the BBOXX companies to install 2m solar systems by 2022. AIIM chief executive Jurie Swart said the deal reflected the maturity of the off-grid sector as well as BBOXX’s ambition.

Angola has published an action plan for the energy and water sectors covering the period 2018-2022. The plan aims to raise total installed capacity to 7.5GW in 2022 from 6.4GW in 2018 by expanding the role of gas and renewables, mainly solar. Tariff increases are planned in the new year in an attempt to eliminate subsidies for the power sector. Speaking at an investor roundtable in London on 14 December, energy minister João Baptista Borges said domestic tariffs would rise to around 10 kwanza ($0.03)/kWh from 3 kwanza/kWh at present.

Dutch development bank FMO and specialist financier Symbiotics have agreed a $32.5m facility with Zola Electric, the brand name of Off Grid Electric, to finance the expansion of the company’s operations in Tanzania over the next five years. During those five years Zola plans to provide electricity to an additional 145,500 households, creating 2,100 new jobs in the off-grid industry.

Australian gold miner Resolute Mining has signed a joint development agreement with South Africa’s Ignite Energy Projects for a 40MW solar hybrid power plant at the Syama gold mine. The plant, which will combine solar photovoltaic (PV), battery and heavy fuel oil (HFO) technologies, will be built and financed as an independent power producer (IPP). Resolute said it would be the world’s largest off-grid, fully integrated hybrid power plant for a stand-alone mining operation when it enters full operation by the end of 2020.

Miner RioZim has engaged Japan’s Univergy to build four 25MW solar power stations to supply cheaper energy to four of its biggest mines. The Herald newspaper reported that the sites were Renco and Cam and Motor gold mines, Murowa Diamonds and the Dalny gold mine, recently acquired from Falcon Gold.

The African Development Bank on 7 November approved a €42.3m ($48.2m) loan to support the national rural electrification programme. The loan will be disbursed over three years from 2019 and is intended to support the government’s aim of connecting all communities of more than 500 inhabitants to the grid by 2021. Three districts in the north of the country – Savanes, Woroba and Zanzan – will be connected to the grid via medium-voltage lines, giving around 260,000 people access to electricity.

Find ways to store the electricity generated from solar, wind and other renewables, and these technologies may cease to be ‘intermittent’ sources of power – a game-changer that is expected to transform Africa’s electricity supply industry in the next decade or two. “Storage will make a lot of difference to the shape of the grid,” observed Gravitricity managing director and co-founder Charlie Blair, predicting that networks will emerge “without big spines and instead more of a nodal system”.

After winning a tender in 2017 to provide electricity to 300,000 households in Togo over five years, off-grid solar company BBOXX has launched a new distributed energy service company (desco) to handle in-country operations. BBOXX Togo is owned by BBOXX alongside EDF and BBOXX equity partner Beam. BBOXX is already supplying electricity to 26,000 households, having opened around 20 shops employing 100 people.

Investment advisory GreenMax Capital Advisors and merchant bank Broad Street Capital Group are pioneering a new approach to financing portfolios of off-grid projects called the GreenStreet Africa Energy Infrastructure Financing Programme. The initiative aims to allow public institutions access to low-interest financing while encouraging African governments to take on some of the risks in the sector.

New York-based start-up Soluna Technologies, run by serial entrepreneur John Belizaire and backed by US private equity company Brookstone Partners, is raising funds to develop the first phase of an eventual 900MW wind farm site near Dakhla in the disputed Western Sahara, which is under Moroccan administration but still subject to a United Nations decolonisation mandate.Soluna is bringing in investors to develop the first 36MW of the scheme, which at the outset will be entirely off-grid.