UAE’s Amea Power reaches financial close on its South African solar plant

UAE renewables company Amea Power reached financial close on its USD 120 mn, 120 MW Doornhoek solar energy plant in South Africa, according to a statement published on Thursday. Amea will get USD 100 mn in debt funding from Standard Bank South Africa and another USD 8 mn in equity funding from the Industrial Development Corporation will go to the company’s local partners. The project will start commercial operations by December 2025.

REMEMBER- The firm was awarded the project in 2022 and construction was slated to begin in mid-2023. The plant will generate over 325 GWh of clean energy, offsetting 330k tons of CO2 emissions annually, and powering 97k homes. Amea holds the majority of the project's shares, on which it partnered with Ziyanda Energy and Dzimuzwo Energy. Amea signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with South Africa’s Eskom last month.

The company’s African portfolio is booming: Amea Power signed agreements with the governments of Uganda, Djibouti, Mozambique and Zimbabwe to develop renewables projects with a combined 200 MW generation capacity at COP28. It also signed an agreement with Ethiopia’s Finance Ministry to build a USD 600 mn, 300 MW onshore wind power plant in the country. The UAE firm is also reportedly set to sign a USD 800mn agreement with Geothermal Development Co. of Kenya to develop the 200 MW Baka geothermal energy generation plant in the African country.

And there’s more in the pipeline: The company completed a 33/220kV substation building structure at its 500 MW Abydos solar plant in Egypt last month. The solar plant — which secured funding in December 2022 — is scheduled to be completed in the middle of this year, and is being constructed under a build-own-operate framework. Amea also began construction of the TND 300 mn (USD 95.7 mn), 100 MW solar power plant in Tunisia’s Kairouan last month.