The US’ International Development Finance Corp. (DFC) and Shell Foundation have announced that they are partnering to work on renewable energy access in low-income states, in Africa and Asia.
They aim to bring renewable energy to more than five million people by 2025. They are targeting people without grid access who are living on $2-10 per day. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) also targets to empower women economically.
Shell Foundation will use more than $45 million in grant funding to build several businesses. These will deliver distributed renewable energy.
DFC said it hoped to approve up to $100 million in early-stage debt and equity to support these businesses. The agency said it would work with Shell Foundation on its energy investments made alongside the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), Power Africa, and USAID.
The agency stated the MoU with Shell Foundation was in line with another MoU. DFC signed an agreement in December 2020 with the Rockefeller Foundation.
“This new collaboration leverages DFC’s effective financing tools and Shell Foundation’s experience and portfolio to support companies that connect people living at the last mile to productive electricity, which will dramatically improve their lives,” expressed Acting DFC CEO Dev Jagadesan.
Commercial financing with Shell Foundation would help companies scale, “while prioritizing women’s economic empowerment and supporting economic growth as countries continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic”, he further added.
Shell Foundation’s CEO Sam Parker said distributed renewable energy was “already providing more affordable, more reliable energy to tens of millions of people who cannot access the grid, mostly in ways that are far more cost-effective and quicker to deploy, yet they are unable to access significant growth investment”.