….About $14.5 Billion Spent Under The Initiative
Yemisi Izuora
The Power Africa initiative has continued to lay the foundation for sustainable economic growth in Africa as it makes progress towards its goals of increasing installed generation capacity by 30,000MW and adding 60 million new electricity connections by 2030.
A recent Power Africa report, said since inception the project it has closed more than 80 transactions and more than $14.5 billion in funding.
The report disclosed that to date, the US government has disbursed approximately $500 million, and made more than $2.6 billion financial commitments towards Power Africa’s goals.
Furthermore, the study draws emphasis on another milestone it has achieved, that being the passed Electrify Africa Act of 2015.
The Act aims to make government-backed credit more accessible to the private sector in order to deliver access to energy for more than 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Among the African women in the power sector featured is Uganda’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Irene Muloni, who points out that the energy needs in Africa are enormous and so is the potential.
“In Uganda, Power Africa has worked through the US-based National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) to help our Rural Electrification Agency deliver on-grid connections,” Muloni stated.
She added: “We aim to add 1.5 million new connections by 2022. Power Africa also has helped multiple small hydroelectric projects reach financial close, adding 53MW of generation capacity.
“We hope that working with Power Africa and its partners, Uganda will add 1,000MW of new power generation by 2020 through many types of energy technology.”
Expanding on the future plans of the initiative, Andrew Herscowitz, US Coordinator for Power Africa said: “Our intent is to expand beyond our initial focus on solar lantens and renewable energy to support more on-grid power projects in natural gas and other sources, as our funding allows.”