African Utility Week’s Finance and Investment Forum: Africa as Attractive Power Project Investment Destination

Cape Town, South Africa, April 14, 2016 --(PR.com)-- “Five years ago, when South Africa launched its renewable Reefit programme, it did not know how successful it would be,” says KPMG’s De Buys Scott. He adds: “the country has since then been the recipient of much global acclaim for its renewable programme successes and this process needs to be copied into the SADC region. I also think the East African block, including Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda, can easily repeat this renewable programme.”

De Buys Scott is a Senior Partner in Transactions & Restructuring and head of the KPMG Infrastructure advisory in the Infrastructure and Major Projects Division. During the Finance and Investment Forum at the upcoming African Utility Week in Cape Town in May, he will chair a session on: “The success of the Renewable Energy IPP programme in South Africa.” KPMG are also platinum sponsors at this year’s African Utility Week.

Key trends unpacked at Finance Forum
“There are exciting investment opportunities in the power sector in Africa,” says African Utility Week event director Evan Schiff. “During the Finance and Investment Forum, financiers and project owners will hear about the key trends impacting project finance in regional energy markets with updates and insights on market opportunities, sources of capital, financing instruments, risk mitigation strategies, success factors and access to project finance. A featured session on regional power integration will explore new methods of developing cross-border power projects on a PPP basis, explore the opportunities for investors, and show how regional power integration can substantially save capital investment costs.”

More speaker highlights at the Finance and Investment Forum at African Utility Week include:

· “There is no doubt that 2015 has been a challenging year for the wider infrastructure space in Africa and there is clearly a greater need for regulation that allows for cost-reflectivity of tariffs as well as a culture of user-pay principle. We have developed long-term relationships with African power asset developers, operators, investors and key sector decision makers and are therefore able to facilitate dialogues in an effective manner.”
- Jeannot Boussougouth, Executive: Power & Infrastructure, Standard Bank, which is also the CEO Forum Partner at African Utility Week.

· “There is now persuasive evidence that competitive tenders or auctions produce superior and transparent price and investment outcomes, compared to unsolicited, directly negotiated projects”
- Prof Anton Eberhard is the director of the Management Programme in Infrastructure Reform and Regulation at UCT’s Graduate School of Business. He collaborated on the book: “Independent Power Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa” with the World Bank, which will be launched at African Utility Week. This study builds on lessons from five key countries – Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.

· “The nature of African projects is changing from government and social projects to private commercially viable initiatives. Companies should ‘hunt in packs’ by teaming up with relevant partners providing the requirements of the project as a whole from preparation to design to construction to supply. The Chinese and others secure projects in our continent because they supply holistic, comprehensive solutions including finance.”
- Paul Runge, MD, Africa Project Access.

· “To us, the main problem is project bankability. We have a pipeline of over US$ 1.4 billion but many projects have not yet reached financial close because there are significant hurdles to make them bankable.”
- Benjamin Mugisha, Resident Underwriter, African Trade Insurance Agency, (ATI), Central, East & Southern Africa.

· “Let’s not only bring up the challenges or problems (though important), rather
share success stories we can learn from and scale up.”
- Kannan Lakmeeharan, Partner, McKinsey & Company. He will moderate a panel discussion on “Raising private sector finance for cross border generation and transmission projects.”

· “I believe that via Africa GreenCo we can achieve a structural shift towards an integrated renewable energy development. Africa GreenCo would be a single point PPA counterparty.”
- Ana Hajduka, Founder and CEO, AfricaGreenCo. She will address the Africa Power & Investment Forum on “Regional power integration - funding power generation and large scale regional projects” and is a panellist at the forum discussing: “Finance for sustainable energy investments.”

The full interviews with the experts are available on the event website.

African Utility Week
The 16th African Utility Week and Clean Power Africa conference and trade exhibition returns to Cape Town from 17-19 May – gathering some 6000 engineers, stakeholders and solution providers from around the globe.

The event will feature 250 exhibitors, 250 speakers, a six stream strategic conference, a free-to-attend technical conference on the expo floor, three high-profile keynote sessions, technical site visits and the coveted industry awards gala dinner. The CEO Forum will be an opportunity to discuss challenges and share best practice for high-level power utility executives from countries such as Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.