UK based African electricity developer and investor, Gridworks, and South African investment firm, New GX, have today announced US$40 million of new investment in African renewable energy firm Sustainable Power Solutions Investments (SPS).
SPS works with commercial and industrial (C&I) clients across sub-Saharan Africa to fund, develop, build and operate solar power technologies, including battery storage, that provide consistent, affordable clean energy.
The renewable energy company has over 45MW of solar and more than 15MWh of battery storage (in operation and under construction) in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Indian Ocean islands, spread across hospitality, telecoms, retail and other sectors.
The investment announced today also sees Gridworks (established by CDC, the UK’s DFI) become a majority shareholder in the company, while New GX, which is owned by the Pitje family trust, and represented by Khudusela Pitje, will replace current minority shareholders, Trigen Group and Genfin. Christo Wiese’s Titan Group will remain an investor in the business. The long-term funding provided by Gridworks and New GX will enable the company to deepen its presence in existing markets and expand across Sub-Saharan Africa.
The company is targeting building an additional 100MW of projects. As part of New GX’s investment Khudusela Pitje and Carin van Woudenberg will join the SPS board.
Gridworks first invested in SPS (then known as Mettle Solar Investments) in late 2019. Since then, the company has built over 22MW of grid-tied projects in Southern Africa and Kenya and 4.2MW / 8.7MWh of island projects in the Seychelles, including some of the largest off-grid systems using Tesla’s Powerpack technology in Africa for its customers.
Gridworks now majority shareholder in SPS Investments
“We’re delighted to become the majority shareholder in SPS and support the company in the next stage of its development. Since first investing in 2019, we’ve helped the company become one of only a small set of African developers operating sustainably to finance, build, and operate grid-tied and battery-backed, off-grid systems,” said Gridworks CEO, Simon Hodson.
Gridworks also appointed the experienced Kenyan businessman and former CEO of Kenya Airways, Mbuvi Ngunze as Chairman of SPS. In the last financial year, SPS’s operating plants reduced carbon emissions by more than 11.7 million kilogrammes.
The US$40m of new capital for SPS reflects Gridworks and New GX’s relative shareholdings in the company, with Gridworks committing $US22m and New GX US$18m.
Khudusela Pitje, CEO of New GX Capital commented saying, ““We are delighted to partner with SPS and Gridworks to unlock our renewable energy vision in the commercial & industrial sector across the continent. We will bring our in-depth knowledge as an infrastructure investor and increase SPS’s footprint in the telecoms and industrial sectors. We are driven by a sustainable tomorrow which we believe will also drive industrialisation within the continent.”
“In South Africa, regulatory certainty is key to attracting capital. We believe President Ramaphosa’s announcement for lifting the license requirements around 100MW embedded energy opportunities will drive job creation (especially amongst the youth); private sector investment in the Telecoms sector; and indirectly assist utilities to generate additional capacity without government backed guarantees,” he concluded.
