OPIC Commits $25 Million through SunFunder to Expand Access to Off-Grid Power in Africa and Asia
September 25, 2018
(OPIC)
WASHINGTON D.C. – The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S.
Government’s development finance institution, has committed $25 million in
financing to the Solar Energy Transformation Fund LLC, which will provide loans
to companies developing off-grid solar products and solutions for the millions
of people in Sub Saharan Africa and Asia who lack access to electricity.
The Solar Energy Transformation Fund is managed by SunFunder, a solar energy
finance business working to make off-grid solar lighting and energy solutions
more widely available in developing countries. Solar power is an effective way
to bring cleaner and more affordable electricity to people who live in remote
areas that are not connected or have unreliable connections to central
electricity grids.
The OPIC commitment consists of both a senior and a subordinated tranche, which
will help catalyze other impact-focused investors to achieve a target fund size
of $85 million. SunFunder projects that the Solar Energy Transformation Fund
will make individual loans to more than 50 off-grid solar companies, which in
turn will enable more than three million people to gain access to clean,
affordable energy and lighting.
“OPIC’s support of this project advances several agency priorities,” said
OPIC President and CEO Ray W. Washburne. “In addition to supporting projects
that improve lives of poor people in developing countries, OPIC, through the 2X
Women’s Initiative, is committed to supporting women-owned and women-led
businesses like SunFunder.”
SunFunder was founded in 2012 by Ryan Levinson and Audrey Desiderato, with a
commitment to provide financing to emerging market off-grid solar businesses to
meet their working capital, construction, inventory finance and structured
finance needs.
“OPIC’s innovative participation in both the senior and subordinated
tranches is highly catalytic for the energy access industry,” said Desiderato.
“Their commitment is key to unlocking private capital into the SET Fund which
will enable SunFunder to more rapidly meet solar companies’ growing demand for
debt capital, which includes commercial and industrial projects that require
longer tenor five to seven year funding.”
By introducing electricity to some of the hardest to reach communities in
Africa, these projects advance the U.S. Power Africa initiative to bring
electricity to more of the hundreds of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa
who live without power.
OPIC previously committed $15 million in financing and $10 million in political
risk insurance to another fund managed by SunFunder, the Beyond the Grid Solar
Fund, which provides financing for off-grid companies located in Africa, India,
and the Pacific Islands. To date, the Beyond the Grid Solar Fund has provided
loans to 16 off-grid solar companies, which have helped bring electricity to
1.55 million people.
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