Nuru

Period

2018

Country

DRC

Sector

Renewable energy

Financial facility

ElectriFI

In 2018, ElectriFI invested a USD 0.93 million shareholder loan complemented by a USD 0.5 million equity in 2019 to finance Kivu Green Energy’s first mini-grid project in the city of Goma. The investment took place in the context of severe security issues as well as the Ebola outbreak in the rural areas of North Kivu.

Project overview

ElectriFI invested USD 0.5 million equity followed by a USD 0.93 million shareholder loan, to build the first large scale Goma system, as well as to further develop and upscale Kivu Green Energy and its pipeline. The project will directly replace low-quality electricity from highly polluting diesel-genset by a qualitative service of offering from predominantly renewable sources.

Kivu Green Energy (KGE) is a minigrid operator based in North Kivu. KGE is operating a 55 kW solar-hybrid minigrid in Beni, and is in the process to retrofit and upgrade another formerly diesel-based minigrid to a ~1.3MW solar PV + 2MWh storage system with diesel back-up. The business model is a hybrid minigrid-C&I model since there will be a high component of anchor customers (50-75%) alongside the household and SME clients. The company has a pipeline of 10-25MW of similar projects in the same region that it will deploy in the years to come.

Funding objective

ElectriFI invested USD 0.5m equity and USD 0.933m shareholder loan. The proceeds will be used to build the first large scale Goma system, as well as to further develop and upscale the company and its pipeline.

Investment rationale

ElectriFI supports the interesting business model of the company and considers it to have very high additionality giving the difficult region it operates in. Furthermore, the project directly replaces low-quality electricity from highly polluting diesel-genset by a qualitative service of offering from predominantly renewable sources.