Biggest Off-Grid Solar Firm Wins Loan for Nigeria Power Access

A worker inspects photovoltaic panels at a solar plant that partially powers the Pan African Resources Plc Elikhulu Tailings Retreatment Plant, which extracts traces of gold from old mine waste, in Evander, South Africa, on Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. In May 2022, fed up with the Eskom-imposed electricity rationing that forced the company to curtail its power use by as much as 20%, gold mining company Pan African decided to hire JUWI to build a 10-megawatt solar farm to power its treatment plant east of Johannesburg. Photographer: Guillem Sartorio/Bloomberg Photo by Guillem Sartorio /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — Sun King, the world’s largest off-grid solar company, secured financing from a World Bank-backed program to boost electrification in Nigeria, which has the largest number of people without power. 

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The company secured a naira-denominated loan of $80 million from the International Finance Corp. and Stanbic IBTC Bank Ltd., it said in a statement on Thursday. It’s the largest local-currency facility for energy access in West Africa to date.

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The money will help finance the provision of electricity to as many 4 million households over the next four to five years, adding to the 2 million Sun King already has funded, Chief Financial Officer Krishna Swaroop said. Sun King was formerly known as Greenlight Planet.

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“What’s really exciting about this is that it’s a local-currency facility” so the company doesn’t have to take foreign-exchange risk, Anish Thakkar, a co-founder of the company, said in an interview. It “allows us to provide the most affordable financing to customers,” he said.

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The loan falls under a World Bank and African Development Bank drive to bring electricity to 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. The Mission 300 program envisages tens of billions of dollars of investments in energy projects being rolled out across the continent and was highlighted at an inaugural conference in Tanzania earlier this year.

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The loan is the biggest local-currency facility secured by Sun King and follows a $75 million deal in Kenya in 2021. 

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Sun King sells small solar panels and batteries, and then collects payments over about a year at a cost to customers of about $0.21 a day. The equipment lasts about 10 years. 

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Nigeria, where about 90 million people have no access to electricity, has been a major focus of the World Bank’s electrification programs. In December, the bank facilitated a $750 million loan to Nigeria for electrification using renewable power technologies. It expects private investment of more than $1 billion to be attracted as a result and electricity access to be extended to 17.5 million people. 

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