BAD approves $25 million investment in Renewable Energy Projects Fund in Africa

The African Development Bank has approved a capital investment of $ 25 million in the ARCH Africa Renewable Power Fund (ARPF). This private equity fund has a total value of $ 250 million to apply for Renewable Energy projects in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

This Fund intends to invest in the development and construction of 10 to 15 projects with 533MW capacity from renewable sources in the region, and thus provide base load and peak load power to underserved markets.

Projects will focus on developed technologies such as wind, solar PV, small to medium hydro, geothermal and biomass, including grid-connected Independent Power Producers and decentralized energy projects. The Fund's strategy is to prioritize projects that have already outlined a timetable for closing the financing, primarily early stage projects of risk reduction.

Amadou Hott, the Bank’s Vice-President for Power, Energy, Climate Change & Green Growth, says that "investments in Africa are limited by unstructured projects and the unavailability of venture capital. Renewable technologies require additional support to be competitive in the face of fossil fuel power generation.”

In addition to contributing to renewable energy, the construction of these projects will create at least 272 full-time jobs and 5,320 part-time jobs.