Key Facts Operating four mini-grids in Uganda and Rwanda 230kW mini-grid on Kitobo Island, Uganda powers 650 homes, where previously only nine received power from a diesel generator Raising a $250m impact fund leveraging a first loss $50m soft commitment from the UNFCCC’s Green Climate Fund Absolute Energy is an off-grid utility developer that educates…
Results Based Financing (RBF) programmes have attempted in the past to provide funding for minigrids, but many of them have struggled to disburse the funding effectively. African Minigrid Developers Association’s (AMDA’s) members have participated in many of these programmes and collated their experience of what has worked and what has not worked into a policy…
SF’s partnership with Open Capital Advisors is helping off-grid enterprises in Uganda access local debt finance, public partnerships to serve low-income households and international support to enhance energy for productive use. Download the 2018 market map (PDF 1.2MB).
Decentralised renewable power generation and distribution systems such as mini-grids, are important tools for providing power to the roughly 600 million Africans currently living without access to modern energy services. For African Governments to meet the Sustainable Energy for All Goal of Universal Access to Energy By 2030, it is estimated that 40 percent of…
Shell Foundation provides patient grant funding and extensive support to our social enterprise partners with the objectives of creating maximum impact and making those enterprises financially viable. Husk Power Systems’ recent announcement of commercial investment from Shell Technology Ventures LLC, Swedish development finance institution Swedfund International and ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies, ENGIE group’s impact investment fund,…
In 2017, Shell Foundation and Open Capital Advisors came together to pilot a new approach to accelerate energy access in Uganda. With support from local the UK Government and USAID, and the Government of Uganda, the result is a dedicated and neutral intermediary that provides balanced data and advice to enterprises, investors and policy-makers; coordinates…
SF Director Sam Parker and Catalyst CEO Dan Murphy discussed the report recently in an online webinar hosted by the Clean Energy Solutions Center in partnership with the United Nations Foundation Energy Access Practitioner Network, and took questions from an audience including investors, developers and supporters of the off-grid sector. Taking stock after 15 years…
When Shell Foundation was created in 2000, we set out to test a theory, largely unproven at the time, that market forces could be directed to deliver lasting socio-economic, health and environmental value to low-income communities – and that eradicating many of the world’s most entrenched development challenges could be financed predominantly from private capital.…
Nearly two billion people lack access to reliable and affordable modern energy – severely constraining their health, education and earning potential. Of this group, 60% live entirely without electricity for cooking, lighting and heating at home, for community services, or for improving the productivity of small businesses and farms. Accelerating Access to Energy outlines our…
We have learned a lot about trying to achieve scale and sustainability over the past decade. We set about doing this in ways that were new at the time by pioneering an enterprise-based approach. We concentrated our efforts on tackling social and environmental issues in which the energy industry has a particular responsibility. We also…