Independent power producer Building Energy recently inaugurated the 10 MW Tororo solar plant – its first photovoltaic (PV) system in Uganda and one of the largest solar PV plants in Eastern Africa.
Building Energy was responsible for the development of the project, arranging the financing, as well as the construction and commissioning of the plant.
The Tororo solar plant will generate around 16 GWh/y of energy.
In addition, the plant will foster clean industrial development in the town of Tororo and save atmospheric emissions of more than 7 200 t/y of carbon dioxide.
The solar project was developed under the Global Energy Transfer Feed in Tariff (GET FiT), a dedicated support scheme for renewable energy projects managed by Germany's KfW Development Bank in partnership with Uganda's Electricity Regulatory Agency and funded by the European Union (EU)–Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund, the governments of Norway, Germany and the UK.
The EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund has provided funds through the GET FiT solar facility in the form of a top-up payment per kilowatt-hour of delivered electricity over 20 years.
This financing fills the gap between the generation costs and the feed-in tariff set by the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company through a power purchase agreement.
The overall $19.6-million construction investment at Tororo was financed by FMO, the Dutch development bank which, as mandated lead arranger, coordinated the provision of a $14.7-million term loan facility.
Fifty per cent of the funding was syndicated to the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund, while the overall equity contribution of the shareholders was $4.9-million.