Kenya revives High Grand Falls Dam amid rising demand

• This comes a couple of weeks after the country’s peak demand rose to a record 2,392 MW in August, up from 2,149 MW, as more homes were connected to the grid, forcing it to rely on imports from Ethiopia to keep the system stable.

• Financing the dam is a challenge. The government will likely rely on external lending or explore new avenues such as pension funds, which have recently been encouraged to diversify their investments into energy infrastructure.

• Our take: If Kenya lags in adding firm capacity, commercial and industrial consumers may accelerate their shift to captive generation… Read more (2 min)

Q&A: A new path to funding African solar projects

• Investors can buy tokens as capital for construction. Later, they sell the tokens to local consumers, who use them to pay for electricity. This method addresses the "bankability challenge" for small-scale projects by reducing the high legal and documentation costs associated with traditional debt financing.

• “About 600 million people in Africa lack access to electricity, and while there is an abundance of capital to solve this problem, there isn't a scalable, transparent model to efficiently deploy it,” said Mr said Mohammad.

• Click here to read the full conversation… Read time (5 min)

Consumer View: I want to go solar, but it's expensive

• Samuel Sunmade Owadokun is the owner of Samtech Cyber Cafe in Nigeria. He has a positive view of solar solutions as very reliable, but the initial cost of purchase is a major deterrent, he says.

• Fuel and maintenance costs consume about 30% of his monthly profits. This limits his ability to invest and grow the business further.

• Read the full consumer spotlight here… (2 min)