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- Meet a new pot of money for African renewables
Meet a new pot of money for African renewables
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 | Impact investor Acumen has secured $90 million in capital to support Africa’s climate entrepreneurs, including renewables. The fund is structured as blended finance to de-risk early-stage firms. This comes as Africa pushes for more blended financing to solve for a lack of affordable capital, which has long denied millions of people access to power. |
Most funding in the sector flows to established players, and startups struggle to raise. Even when they succeed, amounts are small. They have received less than 5% of total funding since the start of the year.
This is worrying, given that established players mainly target large industrial consumers and utility-scale projects, leaving rural communities dependent on a small number of startups offering off-grid solutions.
Our take: The Acumen fund’s focus on Africa-based entrepreneurs could strengthen local ecosystems… Read more (2 min)
 | More than 80 renewable energy and energy-adjacent events are planned across Africa from September to November this year. A majority focus on finance and investment in renewables. Forums like the African Energy Week, ESG Impact Investing Summit, and Finance Inclusive Conferences all showcase the vital role of capital mobilisation for growth in the sector. |
Our monthly list also features specialised summits on off-grid systems and decentralised energy solutions that address Africa’s unique energy access challenges.
South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria will collectively host more than 70% of the events. Emerging hotspots include Tanzania, Tunisia, Ghana, Gambia, Rwanda and Libya.
 | Productive Use of Energy (PUE) is shifting from a niche idea to a key driver of energy access and economic growth in Africa. Agriculture leads in adoption, driving the development of irrigation, storage and cooling. We spoke with Mary Wanjiru, Production Sync Engineer at Savanna Circuit, on how PUE is evolving on the continent. |
Savannah Circuit builds solar-powered products, including cooling milk chillers, solar dryers, and dairy management solutions for post-production across the supply chain, focusing on aggregation, chilling during transit, and performance management.
Her definition of PUE follows a human-centred approach. “It's about making sure that the energy generated, whether from renewables or other sources, directly benefits the people who need it the most.”
Orb Energy inaugurates a 2.9 MW solar system for Mabati Rolling Mills in Mariakani, Kenya
Jobs
💼 Become Cygnum Capital’s Investment Officer (Kenya)
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⚡ Zambia’s top coal power station expands with solar capacity
🔋 Ivory Coast adds its first major solar plant to the national grid
🔌 A rural Malawi community is now completely powered by solar energy
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Patricia Mong, an Energy Consultant, says, “Over 40% of African countries rely on outdated or missing energy data and that’s how we end up with wrongly sized systems, inadequate tariffs, stranded assets, and blackouts even when funding is solid.”