Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) as part of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum signed an agreement with US based energy developer SolarReserve and ACWA Power. OPIC has committed $400 million of debt financing to support the development of the two firm’s Redstone Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) project in South Africa.
The Redstone project is a 100 MW facility that will use SolarReserve’s CSP technology, Redstone’s molten salt storage capability will deliver consistent baseload electricity, even after the sun sets. This is a critical development in a country where frequent power outages have been cited as an obstacle to economic growth.
OPIC support to the Redstone project is seen as a significant milestone for US President Barak Obama’s Power Africa initiative, of which OPIC is a key contributor. Power Africa aims to bring new power access to the more than 600 million sub-Saharan Africans currently living without energy access.
The Redstone CSP Project, ACWA Power’s 2nd project in South Africa, delivers dispatchable power at the most competitive tariff offered in the country’s REIPPP program to date for CSP technology, while maximizing value retention in not only the economy, but also within the local economy in the project vicinity.
The project also represents the first time CSP Tower technology has been deployed in the country using a project finance framework.