Return on Investment in Africa’s infrastructure will far outweigh costs. Infrastructure develop-ment is a top priority for African administrations. Access to power plays a key role in this program. Roughly 600 million people in Africa, nearly twice the population of the United States, are living without access to electricity according to a 2011 study. They represented 43% of the 1.4 billion people worldwide who lacked regular access to electricity. The majority of these people are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, and not necessarily in remote villa-ges. For example, Kenya’s Electrification Authority reports that while 73% of Kenyans live within one kilo-meter (0.6 miles) of a transformer, only 18% are con-nected to the grid. Thirty seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa have a national electrification rate of below 50 percent. A 2010 World Bank report estimated that poor infra-structure like power shortage curbs African economic growth by 2 percent per year and business productivi-ty by 40 percent. One study estimates that the broa-der returns to infrastructure investment can reach 50 percent when accounting for GDP growth, while the World Economic Forum found that each dollar spent on infrastructure returns anywhere from 5 percent to 25 percent. A second factor is the rapidly falling cost of renewable energy. Africa has some of the world’s best potential sites for wind, solar and hydropower. Investors are proving readier to test the market by putting up a few windmills than by committing to big power stations. Wind farms and solar parks can also provide decen-tralised or “off-grid” power directly to customers, re-ducing the load on congested transmission lines. Giv-en the high cost of power from diesel generators in Africa, renewable energy can be an attractive alterna-tive.

Many African countries receive on average a very high amount of days per year with bright sunlight. Most of the sunniest places in the world are on the African continent, due to the general low cloud cover in the sky. This gives solar power the potential to bring energy to virtually any location in Africa without the need for expensive large scale grid level infra-structural developments. We can actually consider, the African continent has on average more than 3,000 sunny hours on year-based average. The dis-tribution of solar resources across Africa is fairly uni-form, with more than 85% of the continent's land-scape receiving at least 2,000 kWh/(m² year). Declining solar equipment costs are expected to sig-nificantly increase solar installations in Africa with an industry projection forecasting that the continent's annual PV market will expand to 2.2 GW by 2018.

Ghana’s power deficit represents enormous oppor-tunities for foreign direct investment as well as pub-lic-private partnerships in the energy sector, Minis-ter of Trade and Industry, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, has declared to some 600 top global business leaders attending the Africa CEO Forum in Gene-va, Switzerland. According to Dr. Spio-Garbrah, the deficit of some 500 megawatts of power and the projections for additional power demand in Ghana has led to more than 20 proposals being submitted by a wide range of companies from the US, Germany, Denmark, India, China, South Africa, Turkey, Brazil and others for thousands of megawatts of additional ge-neration. These projects are from all sources of energy, in-cluding gas, coal, wind, solar, biomass, waste-to-energy, mini-hydro and even sea wave. On ac-count of these developments, Dr. Spio-Garbrah was convinced that the medium term prospects for Ghana’s industrialisation were good. Kenya has stepped up its efforts to transform 40,000 acres of land into a wind farm, in a bid to meet growing demand for electricity. The 300 MW Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, which is being developed in the country's North-East, hopes to produce 20% of the country's current installed electricity generating capacity when it comes online in 2016.The $694 million project achieved full finan-cial close in December 2014, making it the largest private investment in Kenyan history. The project is one part of the country's ambitious project to add 5,000 MW of power onto the grid in the next three years. Nigeria’s determination to generate an additional 500MW from solar PV by this year and create a ba-se for increasing the capacity to 4,000MW by 2025, appear to be on course after the recent sig-ning of a major renewable energy development deal with a global clean energy development joint venture. The agreement between the government of Nigeria and SkyPower FAS Energy, a joint venture bet-ween SkyPower Global and FAS Energy in May, for the development of 3000MW of utility-scale solar PV projects in the West Africa nation in the next five years, has boosted the country’s ef-forts to generate 18% of its electricity from renewa-ble sources by 2030. The $5 billion solar PV investment by SkyPower FAS Energy, to be developed in phases, is part of Nigeria’s strategy of pursuing an integrated rene-wable energy development programme that would enable it meet an anticipated annual electricity de-mand of between 6390MW and 10,800MW by 2020 up from the 3760MW.

Meanwhile in South Africa Renewable Energy Invest-ments South Africa (RF) Pty Ltd (REISA) commenced commercial operation of the Kathu Solar PV facility – one of the largest photovoltaic projects in South Africa – on 11 November 2014. The project is expected to de-liver 179GWh of clean energy into the grid annually, equivalent to the electricity requirements of 68,000 low income households in South Africa. REISA CEO, Richard Gordon, says “The shareholders in REISA recognise that effective infrastructure is vital for the economic growth and development of the Afri-can continent. This project has over 340,000 installed solar photovoltaic modules with a combined generating capacity of 75MWac and is producing energy under a 20-year PPA signed with the Single Buyer Office, deli-vering clean renewable energy to the Northern Cape and South Africa with a low environmental impact.”. The project brought together an investment consortium consisting of African Infrastructure Investment Fund 2 (AIIF2), the Infrastructural Development and Environ-mental Assets (IDEAS) Managed Fund, BuiltAfrica Kathu 75 Solar, Building Energy Development Africa and the Kathu Solar Community Trust. The IDEAS Managed Fund is managed by Old Mutual Alternative Investments, a boutique of Old Mutual In-vestment Group. The fund is the most successful inves-tor in South Africa’s renewable energy program with 14 investments, and has delivered a return of 10% above inflation over 15 years. And with the current changes in lowering costs and all the more possibilities returns may rise to 25% or more.