Page 6 - AfrElec Week 31 2022

AfrElec INVESTMENT AfrElec

US investors seek

opportunities to invest in

South Africa’s green economy

SOUTH AFRICA AMERICAN investors who manage assets connected to the grid.
worth more than $1 trillion are in South Africa In an address on the energy crisis on July
to scout for investment opportunities in green 25, Ramaphosa said an additional 2,600MW of
energy,. renewable capacity has been procured and will
The U.S. Agency for International Develop- be on the grid from early 2024.
ment (USAID) and Prosper Africa, Washing- Eskom, the power utility, recently availed
ton’s initiative to increase trade and investment land in an eastern province for the development
between African nations and America are facil- of renewable energy projects, expected to unlock
itating the trip, the news agency reports, citing a 1,800MW of new capacity.
joint release. South Africa will need to spend $250bn
The delegation comprises pension funds, over the next three decades to fund the closing
financial institutions and asset managers includ- down of coal-fired plants and the development
ing Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the $754mn of replacement green energy such as wind and
Kansas City (Mo.) Public School Retirement Sys- solar, according to a report released in May by
tem and the $8.4bn New York City Board of Edu- the University of Stellenbosch of South Africa
cation Retirement System will meet with fund and the Blended Finance Taskforce of London.
managers and discuss blended finance opportu- In November 2021, the world’s richest nations
nities for South Africa’s transition to renewable pledged $8.5bn at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland
energy and women’s economic empowerment, in climate grants and concessional loans to the
the statement said. nation.
South Africa is the most developed economy “There’s not enough public resources in
on the continent and its biggest source of green- donor budgets and in local budgets, for example,
house gases (GHG), and number 13 globally. It in South Africa to solve the climate crisis,” Cam-
produces about 80% of its electricity through eron Khosrowshahi, senior investment adviser
coal-fired plants, most of which are at least 35 for Prosper Africa, told Blomberg on Thursday.
years old and suffer frequent breakdowns. As a “There’s going to need to be a scaling up of
result, electricity outages running for up to 10 private capital alongside public capital in order
hours a day are common. to meet the challenge. And that’s part of the rea-
However, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s gov- son why we’re here.”
ernment has a commitment to increase energy Washington is trying to deepen its ties with
security with renewables contributing to the mix Africa and counter China’s influence, the con-
In 2018 his government revived a renewable tinent’s largest trading partner and bilateral
energy procurement programme and since then creditor.™
2,000 MW of solar and wind power has been

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