UK Prosperity Fund backs S Africa renewable energy projects

The UK government's Prosperity Fund will support eight projects, including renewable energy, in southern Africa, it was announced this week.

The Prosperity Fund, announced in November last year, has a budget of GBP 1.3 billion (USD 1.7bn/EUR 1.6bn) over the next five years. It promotes the economic reform and development in partner countries.

The eight southern Africa projects it has agreed to back include projects in South Africa, Angola and Mozambique. Two are in the area of sustainable urban development, and another two are related to public private partnerships. The remaining four are in the field of renewable energy and are all in South Africa.

These include a project to introduce small-scale waste-to-energy technology and business model to South Africa in partnership with The Waste Transformers. Another project involves Carbon Trust integrating off-grid solutions to support South Africa's rural electrification programme. The Prosperity Fund will also support the development of renewable energy projects on mining impacted land and communities by Promethium Carbon. The initiative is expected to create jobs in former mining communities and help reduce pressure on the country's electricity grid. The final project will see Northumbria Energy Ltd demonstrate UK technology for smart electricity grid management.

(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.313/EUR 1.194)

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