President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina says there is huge investment opportunities in Africa’s renewable energy sector that needs to be explored to improve on the socio-economic needs of the continent.
He said this in UK where he delivered the keynote address at the just ended UK-Africa Investment Summit, themed: ‘Sustainable Infrastructure Forum’.
The programme was organised by the Department for International Development (DFID) and Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa.
“Take the case of Unmet; demand is for some 600 million people for electricity. Huge opportunities exist for investments in renewable energy, especially for hydropower, wind, solar thermal and geothermal,” Dr Akinwumi observed.
Dr. Akinwumi, who is also Nigeria’s former Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, stressed, however that many of these opportunities cannot be realised unless Africa invests a lot more in project preparation to make projects bankable.
“The African Development Bank, through its NEPAD infrastructural project preparation facility, has helped to mobilise financing for $8.5billion of infrastructural projects that leverage ratio of 1:525,” he said.
According to Dr Akinwumi, the AfDB helped to establish Africa 50, an institution to support infrastructure project preparations and financing.
He added that that has raised over $860 million and now be establishing a $1billion third-party private fund to finance infrastructure investments by private sector on a commercial basis.
“The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) based at the bank, had supported investment in excess of $800 million in renewable energy. And i was delighted yesterday to announce the partnership of DFID with the African Development Bank for € 80 million to further support project preparation for infrastructure. There definitely need for more resources for project preparation facilities in Africa”, Dr Akinwumi noted.
He said the African Development Bank used a partial risk guarantee to support the Lake Turkana Project in Kenya, the Turkana Wind Power Generation Project in Africa, which will produce 300MW of electricity.
“The African Development Bank’s twenty million Partial Risk Guarantee essentially backstopped the government of Kenyan’s obligations to developers against delay of transmission lines,”Dr Akinwumi said.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com