CrossBoundary Energy (CBE) recently secured a fresh US$200 million in senior debt to expand its portfolio of renewable power projects across Africa, deepening its role in supplying clean electricity to industries at a time when the continent attracts just a fraction of global energy investment.
The financing, arranged as a second tranche under a mechanism led by Standard Bank, was confirmed last week and now awaits deployment across key industrial markets where energy insecurity continues to restrain growth.
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The transaction builds on the first tranche closed in December 2024 as reported by Ecofin Agency, which opened space for additional participation from Norfund, Impact Fund Denmark and the Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund in the course of 2025.
These institutions, all focused on climate-aligned investment, have backed CBE on the basis of a business model that removes up-front power infrastructure costs for companies and replaces them with long-term offtake agreements.
The financing momentum accelerated further in July, when the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) approved a US$495 million guarantee to shelter CBE’s assets from currency volatility and transfer restrictions in countries where macroeconomic fluctuations have historically deterred private capital.
CBE’s approach centers on fully financed renewable systems, primarily solar and storage, that industrial clients pay for through consumption rather than capital expenditure. This has been especially appealing to firms in mining, manufacturing and telecommunications, where unpredictable grid supply and high diesel costs erode profit margins.
One of its flagship developments is a 30-megawatt solar-plus-storage unit under construction for the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. If completed on schedule, it will deliver steady baseload power that reduces shutdown risks, lowers operating costs and curbs emissions in a region where diesel generators remain the fallback for most industrial sites.
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The scale of the new debt facility signals that lenders are increasingly willing to back decentralized renewable infrastructure in markets once considered too high-risk. However, the financing gap remains vast. IRENA’s most recent figures show that sub-Saharan Africa received only around 2 percent of global renewable energy investment in 2024, amounting to less than a tenth of what analysts estimate the region requires annually to meet medium-term demand.
Countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Morocco continue to draw the bulk of capital, while frontier markets, including parts of West and Central Africa, rely heavily on concessional finance and guarantee structures like the one CBE secured from MIGA.
The implications extend beyond the energy sector. Reliable power is one of the most significant determinants of competitiveness for African industries. The mining sector alone accounts for more than 30 percent of export revenues in countries like Zambia and the DRC, yet outages often push firms to spend as much as 20 percent of operating budgets on alternative power.
In manufacturing hubs such as Nigeria and Ghana, grid instability forces companies to run diesel generators for between 30 and 60 percent of operating hours, inflating production costs and undermining sustainability commitments. Projects financed under CBE’s model have the potential to reverse part of this trend by embedding long-term cost predictability into industrial supply chains.
Africa’s broader energy transition hinges on whether capital can reach commercially viable projects at scale, and whether those projects can demonstrate performance strong enough to pull in more investors. The latest financing round positions CBE among a handful of firms attempting to prove that renewable power in frontier markets is bankable when structured with the right risk protections and operational guarantees.
If the pipeline proceeds as planned, the company’s installations could serve as reference points for lenders assessing similar opportunities across the continent. For now, the US$200 million secured marks a step forward in linking private capital to Africa’s energy needs, offering industrial consumers alternatives to unreliable grids and high-carbon fuels.
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