Why local market understanding, sound financing and execution capability must work together to turn renewable energy opportunities into delivered projects.
A renewable energy project can attract investment and still face a difficult path to construction. Permitting requirements, uncertainty around grid connections and changes in project costs can affect timelines and commercial viability. These challenges matter particularly when a project requires substantial upfront investment and is expected to operate under long-term contractual arrangements.
Across Africa, expanding renewable energy capacity requires more than securing financing. Developers must understand the markets in which they operate, shape projects around local conditions and coordinate the partners responsible for financing, construction and operation. How these elements come together can influence whether a project progresses as planned.
Our work at Infinity Power is rooted in African markets and their operating realities. Across Egypt, Senegal and South Africa, our experience spans solar, wind and battery storage, from operating assets to projects under development. Together, these projects illustrate why delivery cannot follow a single formula. The approach must reflect the market, the technology and the stage of development.
Beyond Financing: The Challenges of Project
A project's financial case depends on more than its expected energy generation and revenues. Investors must also consider whether the necessary approvals can be secured, how the project will connect to the grid, which contractual arrangements will govern its operation and how construction risks will be managed. These factors can influence investors’ willingness to commit capital to a project.
A project’s operational structure matters just as much as its funding. Risks need to be assessed early and reflected in financing and delivery plans, with responsibilities clearly defined among the partners involved.
Our 200 MW Ras Ghareb wind project in Egypt illustrates how financing and delivery milestones connect. In September 2025, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced a US$74.1 million financing package, combining an EBRD loan with concessional financing and an investment grant from the Green Climate Fund, alongside funding mobilised from JICA and Proparco. In December 2025, construction began on the project, alongside the signing of an engineering, procurement and construction agreement with POWERCHINA Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited.
The Ras Ghareb project illustrates how financing and project execution must come together for an investment to advance. Securing capital is a critical milestone, but moving into construction also requires clear contractual arrangements, defined responsibilities and technical partners capable of delivering the project.
For renewable energy investment across Africa, the challenge is not simply to mobilise capital, but to translate it into projects that can be built and operated successfully. Financing and delivery are distinct stages of the process, and both are essential to turning investment into infrastructure.
Knowing the market sharpens risk judgment and builds trust
Renewable energy markets across Africa differ in their regulatory frameworks, electricity systems, procurement processes and infrastructure. These differences shape how projects are structured, how electricity is supplied and what is needed to integrate new capacity into the wider power system.
Senegal offers a practical example. Our Taiba N'Diaye wind farm has an installed capacity of 158.7 MW and forms part of the country's operating renewable energy infrastructure. In 2023, we signed a 20-year Capacity Change Agreement (CCA) with Senelec, Senegal's national electricity company, to supply 40 MW through a battery energy storage system with a capacity of 160 MWh. The system is designed to support grid stability and enable further renewable energy growth.
The agreement reflects how renewable energy development must respond to the needs of the wider electricity system, not just the generation of power. A long-term arrangement of this kind also requires a shared understanding of the grid's needs and how energy storage can support the integration of variable renewable energy. These factors determine which technical and contractual models fit each market.
The same principle applies across other markets. Regulatory frameworks, grid conditions and contractual arrangements vary, experience in one country cannot simply be transferred to another. Developers must apply what they have learned while assessing the specific conditions of each new opportunity.
Long-term presence can help build that understanding. Familiarity with local institutions, market structures and operating conditions informs project development and the partnerships needed to move it forward. It cannot eliminate uncertainty, but it can support more realistic risk assessments and execution plans.
For lenders, governments and other partners, the quality of that assessment matters. A project's prospects depend not only on its financial potential, but also on whether its development approach reflects the market in which it will operate.
Governance discipline helps turn capability into bankability
Understanding the market helps developers assess the risks a project may face. Turning that understanding into a viable project also requires clear responsibilities, sound planning and coordination between the organisations involved.
Financial institutions bring funding and investment expertise, developers contribute project development skills and market knowledge, and engineering and construction partners are responsible for delivering the design. Clear governance helps align their roles, establish how decisions are made and ensure that commitments are carried through.
Environmental and social considerations are part of this process, too. At Ras Ghareb wind project in Egypt, environmental and social assessments address stakeholder engagement, biodiversity, health and safety, and cumulative impacts. These considerations form part of the project's preparation alongside its technical design and financing arrangements, helping identify and assess potential risks before they affect delivery.
The same need for coordination is evident in projects that combine different technologies. Our Nefer Minya project, currently under development in Egypt in partnership with Hassan Allam Utilities Energy, is designed to combine 1,200 MWp of solar capacity with a 600 MWh battery energy storage system. The battery storage system is intended to provide two hours of energy shifting to the Egyptian grid.
Bringing these components together requires more than planning for each technology separately. Their design and implementation must be coordinated so that solar generation and battery storage can work together as intended. This is where execution capability becomes particularly important: translating a project's technical design into an integrated system that responds to the needs of the grid.
Bankability also matters after a project begins operating. In South Africa, Absa completed a US$372 million refinancing in October 2025 of our 368 MW wind portfolio, comprising the Noupoort, Loeriesfontein 2 and Khobab wind farms.
The transaction reduced financing costs and tariffs payable by Eskom, generating savings over the remaining terms of the projects' power purchase agreements. It also released shareholder funds for reinvestment in new renewable energy initiatives.
This example shows that the financial structure of an operating asset can continue to influence its value long after construction is complete. Refinancing can improve the economics of existing projects while creating opportunities to put capital to work elsewhere.
Turning opportunity into delivery
Africa's renewable energy ambitions will depend not only on attracting the capital needed to expand capacity, but also on developing projects that reflect local market realities, bring the right partners together and account for the practical challenges of delivery.
For developers, investors and their partners, this means looking beyond a project's financial potential to understand what it takes to move from planning to construction and sustain its value over time. Local market knowledge, sound financing, clear governance and execution capability must work together to turn investment into projects that can be delivered and create lasting value.