project

Nuru (former Kivu Green Energy)

Country: DRC
Technology: Hybrid Solar-Battery-Genset
Business model: Minigrid

In 2018, ElectriFI invested a USD 0.93 million shareholder loan complemented by a USD 0.5 million equity in 2019 to finance Kivu Green Energy’s first mini-grid project in the city of Goma. The investment took place in the context of severe security issues as well as the Ebola outbreak in the rural areas of North Kivu.

Contract signature date: December 2018
Total ElectriFI financing: USD 1.43m (equiv EUR 0.8m + EUR 0.4m)

Environmental and Social Category*: B

*(A) high risk, (B+) medium high risk, (B) medium risk or (C) low risk

About the project:

ElectriFI invested USD 0.5 million equity followed by a USD 0.93 million shareholder loan, to build the first large scale Goma system, as well as to further develop and upscale Kivu Green Energy and its pipeline. The project will directly replace low-quality electricity from highly polluting diesel-genset by a qualitative service of offering from predominantly renewable sources.

Kivu Green Energy (KGE) is a minigrid operator based in North Kivu. KGE is operating a 55 kW solar-hybrid minigrid in Beni, and is in the process to retrofit and upgrade another formerly diesel-based minigrid to a ~1.3MW solar PV + 2MWh storage system with diesel back-up. The business model is a hybrid minigrid-C&I model since there will be a high component of anchor customers (50-75%) alongside the household and SME clients. The company has a pipeline of 10-25MW of similar projects in the same region that it will deploy in the years to come.

At a glance