Sub-Saharan Africa’s small to medium-scale renewable energy sector will benefit from the UK Government’s commitment to £100m of extra funding – announced at COP24.

The Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) should now be able to support the financing of up to 40 more projects across the region from 2019-2023 – providing improved or first-time electricity access to around 2.4m people per year. The extension could also unlock an extra £156 million of private finance into renewable energy markets in Africa by 2023.

REPP was set up in 2015 with £48m initial funding from the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to help small to medium-scale renewable energy projects attract and access private and institutional investment – mobilising private finance in sub-Saharan Africa. It is managed by Camco Clean Energy.
To date, the programme has agreed to contracts with 18 renewable energy projects across 11 countries, employing seven different technologies, from solar home systems and PV mini-grids to biomass and run-of-river hydro.

Over the projects’ 25-year lifespans, they are together expected to provide improved or first-time energy access to 4.5m people, increase capacity from clean energy by 194MWwhile creating 8,000 jobs during development and operation.

BEIS’s investment in REPP forms part of the UK’s £5.8bn commitment to international climate finance by 2021, as part of the global effort to tackle climate change.

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