In January 2022, OeEB concluded a EUR 1.5 million mezzanine loan agreement with Westa Solar GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the Austrian group RP Global. The financial resources are provided by the African-Austrian SME Investment Facility (AAIF) of the Federal Ministry of Finance. RP Global will implement projects for commercial and industrial customers in Nigeria as part of a joint venture with an established local photovoltaic developer (Oolu). 

Project name Westa Solar
Region Sub-Saharan Africa
Sector Energy / Resource efficiency / Infrastructure
Service Equity Participations
Project country Nigeria
Project volume EUR 1.5  million
Project partner(s) RP Global

Nigeria is characterized by an insufficient and unreliable energy supply. Around 86% of companies own or share a generator. About 48% of the electricity demand is created by expensive generators, which also leads to high CO² emissions. As RP Global expands its strategy to realize solar photovoltaic projects in Africa, the present project focuses on commercial and industrial customers across West Africa to whom RP Global aims to provide cost-effective, clean and reliable solar energy. A total of four to six photovoltaic projects with a total capacity of 2.5 MW are to be set up.

The first reference project is currently being implemented in the Nigerian state of Kano. There, a 500kWp rooftop photovoltaic system was installed on a factory, which has already gone into trial operation. In addition, the current pipeline includes a further 45 customer projects, including factories, food processing companies, hospitals and commercial farms. A single average project size is 500kWp.