{"id":18505,"date":"2015-02-03T23:20:21","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T23:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/rwanda-cuts-ribbon-at-landmark-8-5mw-pv-plant\/"},"modified":"2015-02-03T23:20:11","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T23:20:11","slug":"rwanda-cuts-ribbon-at-landmark-8-5mw-pv-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/rwanda-cuts-ribbon-at-landmark-8-5mw-pv-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda cuts ribbon at landmark 8.5MW PV plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The largest PV farm in sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa has been officially opened in Rwanda by Dutch-headquartered developer Gigawatt Global. } <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The 8.5MW project, located 60km from the capital of Kigali near a village set up for orphans of the 1994 genocide, started producing electricity last autumn under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Rwanda Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA).<\/p>\n

Built at a cost of $23.7m, the PV plant brought together an international consortium of financing partners. <\/p>\n

Debt was provided by the Netherlands Development Finance and London-based Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund, with mezzanine debt underwritten by Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries Norfund.<\/p>\n

Equity came from Norway’s Scatec Solar, also the project’s EPC contractor and O&M provider, along with grants from the Africa Clean Energy Finance (ACEF) programme, part of US President Barack Obama’s Power Africa Initiative, as well as from the UK-Norwegian-Austrian Energy and Environment Partnership scheme.<\/p>\n

“Our project proves the viability of financing and building large-scale solar fields in sub-Saharan Africa, and we hope that this solar field serves as a catalyst for many more sustainable energy projects in the region,” states Gigawatt Global managing director Chaim Motzen.<\/p>\n

“The speed with which this project was completed [12 months from signing the PPA] is a tribute to the strength of the Rwandan government’s institutions and their laser-focus on increasing Rwanda’s generation capacity, as well as to the nimbleness of our team and partners which spanned eight countries.”<\/p>\n

The ceremonial ribbon-cutting was attended by Rwanda minister of infrastructure James Musoni, and John Morton, chief of staff of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic), which administers the ACEF fund.<\/p>\n

The plant will supply grid-connected power for some 15,000 homes in the area. The Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village is leasing land to house the solar farm, with rent paying a portion of the village’s charitable expenses.<\/p>\n

Gigawatt Global president Yosef Abramowitz says: “This utility-scale solar field is a symbol of hope for sub-Saharan Africa’s 34 million orphans and 600 million people without power, ushering in a new era of impact investing that we will hopefully be replicating throughout Africa.”<\/p>\n

{{Source: Recharge News}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The largest PV farm in sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa has been officially opened in Rwanda by Dutch-headquartered developer Gigawatt Global. } The 8.5MW project, located 60km from the capital of Kigali near a village set up for orphans of the 1994 genocide, started producing electricity last autumn under a 25-year power purchase agreement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000056100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-18505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000056100,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18505.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18505.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18505.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18505.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18505.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18505.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000056100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18505"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=18505"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=18505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}