Africa-focused hydropower developer, Anzana Electric Group, has raised $20 million in debt financing from British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor, to finance the construction of run-of-river hydropower projects across Africa.
The BII debt facility will enable Anzana to advance its hydropower portfolio, focused on small- and medium-scale plants with potential solar hybridization, in East, Central and Southern Africa.
Run-of-river hydropower projects in Africa can play an important role in expanding access to electricity. But smaller projects under 10MW often struggle to secure long-term debt financing. According to Anzana, this facility was designed to reduce the high upfront costs and long timelines that usually come with arranging project-specific financing.
“This facility is an important milestone for Anzana as we scale our platform across Africa and expand on our close partnership with BII. Through an end-to-end model spanning generation and distribution, including customer connections, we ensure consistent reliability and quality across the full power value chain,” said Brian Kelly, Anzana Electric Group’s CEO.
Structured as an innovative portfolio-level senior secured facility, Anzana says the financing will enable it to deploy capital across multiple project companies in various countries.
Furthermore, the financing strengthens the company’s ability to bring projects to market faster, expand across priority energy corridors, and meet growing demand for reliable electricity across African economies.
Impact of Anzana’s planned hydropower projects
Through this facility, Anzana expects to unlock 10MW of newly installed distributed baseload generation capacity by 2030, generating an estimated 50+ GWh of clean electricity annually for national and regional power grids and high-demand centers. The first project will be located in Zambia. If successful, Anzana plans to build on this approach so that future projects in its pipeline can also be financed more efficiently.
Anzana’s operating model spans project development, generation, distribution and interconnection, serving both community users and commercial and industrial customers with reliable power delivery. The portfolio is expected to create over 500 jobs during construction and operations, while expanding electricity access and supporting economic activity across the targeted regions.
“Africa faces a significant energy access gap, with nearly 600 million people without electricity. We’re committed to working with partners like Anzana to support Mission 300 and provide electricity access to 300 million people in Africa by 2030. Through this financing, we’re helping countries transition to renewable power, strengthen electricity networks, and deliver clean, reliable energy to millions of households,” Chris Chijiutomi, Managing Director and Head of Africa at BII stated.
