The Africa Renewable Energy Fund II has achieved its first close at \u20ac130 million, following a joint investment of \u20ac17.5 million from The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa and the Climate Technology Fund through the African Development Bank.
The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa and the Climate Technology Fund will each contribute roughly \u20ac8.7 million to mobilize private-sector investment into Africa\u2019s renewable energy sector. The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa will also contribute financing to the AREF II Project Support Facility, which funds technical assistance and early-stage project support to improve bankability.
Other investors include the U.K\u2019s CDC Group, Italy\u2019s CDP, the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and SwedFund.
AREF II, a successor to the original Fund, is a 10-year closed-ended renewable energy Private Equity Fund with a $300 million target capitalization. The Africa Renewable Energy Fund II, managed by Berkeley Energy, invests in early-stage renewable energy projects, thereby not only de-risking the most uncertain phase of power projects, but also promoting increased green baseload in Africa\u2019s generation mix.
\u201cWe are proud to be associated with Berkeley Energy and other like-minded investors, and look forward to AREF\u2019s continued success and leadership in promoting sustainable power development on the continent,\u201d\u00a0said Dr. Kevin Kariuki, the African Development Bank\u2019s Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth.
In 2012, the African Development Bank selected Berkeley Energy, a seasoned fund manager of clean energy projects in global emerging markets to set up AREF. AREF II has a sharper strategic focus than its predecessor on \u201cgreen baseload\u201d projects that will deliver firm and dispatchable power to African power systems through hydro, solar, wind and battery storage technologies.
Luka Buljan, Berkeley Energy\u2019s Managing Director, said: \u201cWe are very excited to have reached this milestone with strong support from our backers. The catalytic tranche from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa and the Climate Technology Fund will assist in mobilising private institutional investors up to full fund size of \u20ac300 million. We now look forward to concluding the fundraising and delivering projects that will provide clean, reliable and affordable energy across African markets.\u201d
\u201cAREF is intertwined with the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa\u2019s history and success, and we have worked closely over the last decade to create precedents in difficult markets and challenging technologies. We look forward to continued collaboration to accelerate the energy transition in Africa,\u201d said Joao Duarte Cunha, Manager for Renewable Energy Initiatives at the African Development Bank and Coordinator of the Sustainable Energy Fund for Afric<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Africa Renewable Energy Fund II has achieved its first close at \u20ac130 million, following a joint investment of \u20ac17.5 million from The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa and the Climate Technology Fund through the African Development Bank. The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa and the Climate Technology Fund will each contribute roughly \u20ac8.7 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":32020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5779],"tags":[3564,1052,3565],"class_list":["post-34138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agriculture","tag-e130m","tag-afdb","tag-aref"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}