South Africa: Opic to fund Redstone CSP

The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) on 20 October signed an agreement with US energy developer SolarReserve and Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power for $400m of debt financing to support the development of the 100MW Redstone concentrating solar power (CSP) project in the Northern Cape. The plant, at Postmasburg near SolarReserve’s Jasper and Lesedi projects, will use molten salt storage technology to deliver consistent baseload electricity even after the sun sets. The project was awarded under the third round of South Africa’s renewable energy independent power producer procurement programme.