Africa PV News Snippets

PNE and SET Select Energy sign MoU for a green hydrogen project in South Africa; SPEF bags $20 million from GCPF and FMO for C&I solar assets in East Africa; Mulilo signs solar PPA with Air Products under South Africa's wheeling regime; Acre Impact Capital secures $40 million EIB funding for climate infrastructure in Africa.

PNE's green hydrogen project: German companies PNE Group and SET Select Energy GmbH have entered a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a green hydrogen project in South Africa. The plan is to generate up to 500,000 tons of e-fuels annually from the 1 GW wind and solar powered electrolyzer. Lack of large grid capacity in the vicinity of the project made the duo settle upon wind and solar energy to electrify the power-to-X project. While the project partners currently evaluate the logistics and raw material & products availability, eventually the aim is to supply the e-fuels to both local and international customers.

 Financial support for East Africa solar projects: Kenya-based commercial and industrial (C&I) solar projects company Starsight Premier Energy Finance (SPEF) has raised $20 million to support its projects in East Africa. Funding of $10 million has been pooled in by impact asset manager responsAbility Investments through its Global Climate Partnership Fund (GCPF), and the Dutch development bank FMO. SPEF claims its monthly lease payment financing model enables its customers to generate their own electricity for about $0.06 to $0.08/kWh, as against them paying grid tariffs ranging from $0.13 to $0.20/kWh. SPEF leases its solar PV system for C&I clients for a period of 12 to 15 years post which the system ownership is transferred to the latter.

Mulilo secures solar PPA: South African renewable energy company Mulilo has secured a solar power purchase agreement (PPA) with Air Products South Africa. The South African arm of the US based industrial gas and chemicals producer Air Products will offtake up to 75 MW from a state-of-the-art solar farm of unidentified capacity under the agreement. The said project is to be constructed in the Northern Cape with financial close expected in Q4/2023. Once commissioned, it is expected to generate close to 240 GWh annually. It is to be jointly owned by both Mulilo and Air Products. The South African company said it will be one of the first large-scale wheeling solar projects in the country. Energy wheeling scheme allows for power generation projects to be located anywhere in the country and power generated to be sold to customers in other locations using Eskom grid. Mulilo was acquired by a fund owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners in March 2023.

$40 million for Acre Impact: UK-headquartered climate infrastructure investor Acre Impact Capital has secured $40 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to help it support renewable energy initiatives, among other areas in Africa. Acre's Export Finance Fund I plans to invest the proceeds in commercial debt of export credit agencies (ECA) for climate infrastructure in the continent. Apart from renewable energy, other focus areas for the fund are health, food and water scarcity, sustainable cities and green transport. EIB called it a 'unique and innovative fund' through which Acre says it aims to reduce the infrastructure financing gap in Africa that's estimated to be over $100 million/year.