Solar energy is a very good and important investment in sub-Saharan Africa.

The energy is cheap, clean and relatively easy to install. It is also very
beneficial to consumers. As Andy Herscowitz, the coordinator for Power Africa
notes, individuals do not have to rely on an electricity grid that can be
unreliable, and once they own their own systems, they are self-reliant for power.

For example, Mobisol,

a German solar housing company active in Tanzania and a partner of the Power Africa
initiative, provides solar panels that enable customers to power welding and pipe
cutting equipment, water pumps, and egg incubators as well as fans to make cook
stoves more effective. Solar-powered appliances can be �super efficient,� and
utilize a fraction of the power of traditional appliances.

Moreover, an increasing amount of public money is being invested in solar energy,

which mitigates risk for private investors, makes long-term capital available at
competitive prices, and provides access to government expertise and other benefits
that come from working with international financial institutions.

In June, for example, the World Bank through its initiative, Scaling Solar
, conducted an auction in Zambia to enable the government to procure solar energy
quickly and at very competitive prices. The winning bidders, Neon/First Solar
and Enel
, will enjoy some of the lowest prices
for solar anywhere in the world at 6.02 cents per kilowatt hour and 7.84 cents per
kilowatt hour, respectively. This compares very favorably with oil-based power,
which can be three to four times as expensive per kilowatt hour.
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First Solar, the biggest U.S. panel producer, and France�s Neoen will jointly build
a 45-megawatt power plant and Enel, an Italian sustainable energy producer, will
provide power from a 28-megawatt facility. The two companies are expected to be
generating electricity within a year. Enel will invest approximately $40 million in
the construction of the new plant, and has signed a 25-year-long power purchase
agreement for the sale of all the energy generated by the plant to the state-owned
utility ZESCO.

Senegal and Madagascar are also participating in the program, which may eventually
spur development of 850 megawatts of solar capacity in the three countries. This
could amount to investments of nearly $1 billion.

Scaling Solar was developed

to help introduce solar technology to the Zambia, using competitive auctions and
the endorsement of the World Bank. That helps to overcome the concerns of
international banks about political risk and makes these emerging markets more
appealing to developers and investors. It also includes standardized contracts,
eliminating the often lengthy process of negotiating power-purchase deals one at a
time. Scaling Solar is an initiative of the World Bank Group, Power Africa, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Denmark, and the Infrastructure Development Collaboration Partnership Fund (DevCo).

As part of its �High 5� initiative, the African Development Bank earlier this year
also launched a multi-billion dollar New Deal on Energy for Africa
, which aims to establish 75 million new off-grid connections. Since USAID�s Power
Africa was launched in 2013, the program�s off-grid partners have added more than
2.5 million new electrical connections.

Solar energy in Africa is an increasingly attractive investment.