Financing signed for Uganda solar project

EREN RE and Access Infra Africa have announced that construction of the 10 MW solar photovoltaic project in Uganda will begin next month.

At a cost of US$19 million, the project is the largest privately funded solar power plant in Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa.

Access Uganda Solar Limited, a partnership between Eren Renewable Energy (EREN RE) and Access Infra Africa, saw the project reach financial close within four months of the power purchase agreement being signed. The solar plant will be built in Soroti, a town situated 300 kilometers northeast of Kampala, Uganda’s capital city. The plant is expected to be operational and connected to the national grid in July 2016.

This project is the first solar power plant successfully developed under the GET FiT Facility, a dedicated support scheme for renewable energy projects managed by Germany’s KfW Development Bank in partnership with the Government of Uganda through the Electricity Regulatory Agency (ERA). The GET FiT solar facility is funded by the European Union Infrastructure Trust Fund, and the program is also supported by the Governments of Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The project was financed by a mix of debt and equity with the senior debt facility being provided by FMO, the Netherlands development bank, and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), a facility of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), The members of PIDG are the development agencies of Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as the World Bank group.