ICA and Africa Law Support Facility co-organizing a training workshop on Renewable Energy Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)

30 October 2013

Closing Africa’s power infrastructure gap requires an estimated US$43 billion per year in capital investments over the period of 2012-2020. Mobilizing private investment, particularly in generation, is crucial to reaching that targeted level of investment.  Successful private investment hinges on government interaction and support in key areas like off-taking and tariff-setting.  The complexity of the legal and regulatory aspects of Power Purchase Agreements often slows agreements and deters private investors. 

With growing interest in renewable energy development in Africa and an increasing appetite of the private sector to invest in countries with renewable energy, it is imperative that public institutions and other key stakeholders in renewable energy public-private partnerships understand all stages of a Power Purchase Agreements – so they can prepare, develop and manage energy deals. 

Renewable Energy Power Purchase Agreements are unique.   They have some particular characteristics - based on their specific technologies (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, etc.)

It is against this background that the ICA and the Africa Law Support Facility (ALSF) are planning to co-organize a training workshop in January 2014, which will gather 45 participants from nine African countries. It is intended to conduct further similar workshops to reach a broad number of African countries.

The objectives of the training workshop will be mainly to:

• provide officials from selected African governments and institutions involved in Renewable Energy power deals, (especially in Independent Power Producer and Public Private Partnership agreements), a better understanding of Power Purchase Agreements in general and specifically to identifying and allocate the risks found in a given project.  Training will be given on how to accurately reflect these risks in documents in the security packages;
• help officials from selected African governments and institutions involved in RE power deals, especially in IPPs (Independent Power Producers) and PPPs (Public-Private Partnership) agreements addressing institutional, legal and contractual issues arising throughout the process of preparing, developing and managing PPAs;
• identify ways of overcoming the key constraint/challenges, which impede or delay projects to reaching financial closure, e.g. the above mentioned risks;
• Identify sustainable ways of continuously improving the skills related to power agreements.

Category: Energy