Kenya-based CrossBoundary Energy Access (CBEA), a mini-grid infrastructure fund has announced completion of a $40 million equity investment from Norfund, the Norwegian Investment Fund for developing countries, and KLP, Norway’s largest pension company, through their joint company KLP Norfund Investments.
This commitment will allow CrossBoundary Energy to further scale its investments in renewable energy solutions for commercial and industrial businesses across Africa.
The $40M commitment is a continuation of Norfund and KLP’s earlier investments in the C&I sector and endorses the scale and maturity of the distributed generation sector in Africa. The secured funding is in addition to $40M in equity invested in CrossBoundary Energy by ARCH Emerging Markets’ Africa Renewable Power Fund in 2020.
CrossBoundary Energy is currently delivering a portfolio of $188M in projects for 30 corporate customers across 14 countries in Africa, comprising 150 MWp of solar PV assets, 50 MWh of battery energy storage assets, and 12 MW of wind assets. CrossBoundary Energy is the renewable energy provider of choice for a number of market-leading companies present in Africa, including Unilever, Diageo, Rio Tinto, Heineken, and AB InBev.
The CBEA has worked with a number of solar companies in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Rwanda, including Topec, SolarAfrica, PowerGen, Centennial, solarcentury and soventix to deploy multiple solar mini-grids.
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