News about the Golomoti solar project in the Dedza district of Malawi. The project now has a liquidity guarantee from the Africa Trade Insurance Agency (ATI). The project is under construction as a public-private partnership (PPP) between the Malawian government and a consortium of Canadian independent power producer (IPP) JCM Power and InfraCo Africa, an investment company of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG).
The ATI is providing its guarantee under the Regional Liquidity Support Facility (RLSF). This facility is the result of a partnership between the ATI and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the German development agency. The RLSF aims to mitigate climate change through support for renewable energy production.
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“It is designed to address the short-term liquidity risks faced by IPPs selling electricity to state-owned utilities across sub-Saharan Africa. The RLSF provides cash collateral supplemented by demand guarantees to a bank, which in turn issues a revolving standby letter of credit to the IPP,” explains the pan-African institution.
Financed by its developers, InfraCo Africa and JCM Power, the Golomoti solar plant will have a capacity of 20 MWp, the second largest PV installation in Malawi after the 60 MWp Salima plant, commissioned a few weeks ago. The Golomoti solar plant will have a 5 MW/10 MWh battery storage system and is covered by a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the state-owned Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM). The project is also supported by Innovate UK, a UK government agency.
Jean Marie Takouleu