A new partnership has been announced to set up solar microgrids in Kenya and Nigeria to provide people living off-grid or with limited access to reliable electricity to have access to a reliable source of electricity. US based Renewvia Energy Corporation has secured support of Singapore headquartered Dream Project Incubators (DPI), a development investment firm with focus on utility scale solar, and off-grid/microgrid renewable energy projects.
The two partners claim to be executing 'thousands of microgrids' through a special purpose entity to allow them to capitalize large portfolios of solar microgrid projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Renewvia says the first 10 projects under the new entity are partially funded by the French Development Bank AFD and the World Bank.
"DPI has been evaluating the off grid sub-Saharan opportunity and felt the most efficient path to take a position is through an established operating platform," said Kazuomi Kaneto, Founder and CEO of DPI. "Renewvia presented an immediate scalable solar microgrid development opportunity on a continent where there are many millions of people living without power."
Renewvia already has subsidiaries in the two African countries and these, it says, are qualified with the World Bank for a performance-based grant for every new connection made in off-grid communities and an investment-based grant for Kenya.
In September 2018, Renewvia commissioned 2 solar microgrid facilities with 30 kW combined capacity on the Kenyan islands of Ndeda and Ringiti (see Renewvia Energy Commissions Microgrid Facilities).