The African Development Bank’s Board of Directors on Monday 14 December 2020 approved $15 million from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) and $10 million from the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) to advance African Renewable Energy Fund (AREF) II’s projects to spice up low-carbon energy generation in Sub-Saharan Africa .
SEFA’s contribution will comprise a package of $10 million in equity and a $5 million reimbursable grant. CTF, a part of the Climate investment (CIF), will provide $10 million in equity. The combined contribution of $20 million from SEFA and CTF will attend capitalize AREF II’s catalytic tranche. The reimbursable grant is earmarked for AREF II’s project support facility. The CTF contribution was approved by the CTF fund Committee on July 2020 under its Dedicated Private Sector Program (DPSP III).
The financing will help small and medium-sized producers to feature quite 800 MW of hydropower, solar and wind generation and battery storage in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa .
“We are very excited to support AREF II at a time when, thanks to competing financing needs, on account of the value impacts of the pandemic and for post COVID-19 recovery efforts, there’s real risk of under-investment within the African power sector, including in renewables,” said Dr. Kevin Kariuki, the Bank’s vice chairman for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth. The Bank manages SEFA, a Special Fund, and is additionally a CTF implementing entity.
Capitalizing the fund’s catalytic tranche is predicted to draw in critical private investment at a time of investment uncertainty and economic disruption due to the continued COVID-19 pandemic and to make sure capital flows to support the delivery of sustainable power infrastructure to satisfy the region’s growing energy needs. AREF II Project Support Facility will work to bring projects to the specified level of readiness and bankability.
AREF II, the second generation of the pan-African Renewable Energy Fund, is targeting a $300 million market capitalisation , and can be managed by Berkeley Energy, a well-established fund manager with extensive experience investing in renewable energy projects in Asian and African markets.
“We are proud to be ready to continue our company’s mission of bringing reliable renewable power to countries and communities in Africa to support economic and social development, whilst also meeting the requirements of our investors”, said TC Kundi, Berkeley Energy’s CEO. “The Berkeley Energy team is looking forward to working again with SEFA which has played a crucial role in launching AREF II,” he concluded.
SEFA provides catalytic finance for renewable energy to contribute to universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy services for beat Africa, in line with the Bank’s New Deal on Energy for Africa and Sustainable Development Goal 7. Established in 2011 in partnership with the govt of Denmark, SEFA counts the us , uk , Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Germany, and therefore the Nordic Development Fund, among its donors.
The CTF may be a $5.4 billion global fund that promotes scaled-up financing for demonstration, deployment and transfer of low-carbon technologies with significant potential for long-term greenhouse emission emissions savings. Since 2010, when the Bank became an Implementing Entity of the CTF in 2010, it’s approved over $588 million in CTF resources for a complete of 10 projects across Africa.
“We welcome the participation of CTF during this project. These concessional resources are going to be instrumental to maximise the participation of personal investors within the Fund while minimizing concessionality, with the aim to support low-carbon and climate-resilient development in Africa,” said Prof. Anthony Nyong, Director of global climate change and Green Growth at the Bank.
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