Off-grid solar financing is finding its way into public debt markets. D.light, an African provider of pay-as-you-go solar systems and appliances, floated a $50 million green bond backed by income from customers’ payments.
The issuance, which will be listed on the London Stock Exchange, is among the first public-market securitizations backed by off-grid solar receivables. Impact manager African Frontier Capital structured the bond.
The bond carries a BBB rating from Sustainable Fitch. It is fully guaranteed by the Green Guarantee Company, an emerging-markets climate guarantor backed by the Green Climate Fund, KfW and others, which helped attract investors including Legal & General, Calvert Impact Capital and family office Ceniarth.
“This is an important step toward opening larger pools of institutional capital for energy access and toward achieving universal access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy,” d.light’s team wrote.
Scaling impact
Under d.light’s pay-as-you-go model, customers purchase solar home systems and appliances over time through installment payments. Packaging those receivables into securities allows d.light to raise capital to provide more customer credit.
Since 2020, d.light has completed a series of receivables-backed financings, including a $238 million multi-currency facility in Kenya, a $125 million facility in Tanzania, and a local currency securitization in Nigeria.
Together with the latest bond, those transactions have pushed d.light’s securitized financing to more than $1 billion. The company expects to support more than 20 million first-time energy connections and create more than 50,000 jobs by 2030.
