Climatescope – the clean energy country competitiveness index, interactive report, and online tool supported by Power Africa, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the Inter-American Development Bank – was launched by Bloomberg New Energy Finance on November 23. It offers a compelling portrait of clean energy activity in 55 emerging markets across Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

This year’s Climatescope index also highlights significant clean energy activity across sub-Saharan Africa. The 19 African countries covered by Climatescope have attracted over $25 billion for renewable energy projects to date, excluding large hydro. Overall renewable energy capacity in these countries doubled in 2014, to over 4 gigawatts.

Climatescope’s key findings for sub-Saharan Africa include:

• South Africa, Kenya and Uganda finished in the top 10 of the Climatescope index. South Africa, in fourth place overall behind only China, Brazil, and Chile, has become a globally significant investment destination for clean energy thanks to its Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement (REIPPP) auctions, accounting for nearly 70% of regional investment.
• The off-grid solar sector is growing rapidly across sub-Saharan Africa – mainly through private sector innovation.  Entrepreneurs have sold over 10 million small-scale solar products, offering lighting, phone charging and increasingly larger appliances like televisions and fridges. Pay-as-you-go business models – often via mobile phone payments – allow off-grid companies to scale up the services they offer and expand quickly, attracting over $300 million in investment so far.
• Kenya had the biggest deal outside of South Africa in 2014: the 310 MW Lake Turkana wind project, which reached financial close in March 2014 after nine years of development. It remains sub-Saharan Africa’s largest wind financing to date, and was one of the largest in the world in 2014.
• While Kenya’s feed-in-tariff wasn’t high enough to make the economics of solar work a few years ago, interested investors have built up a pipeline of potential projects. Signs indicate that lower costs will make some of these projects viable, and more project activity is expected over the coming years.
• Nigeria climbed several places up the ranking, primarily due to increased investment in 2014. It had the only other clean energy financing outside of Kenya and South Africa above $100 million in 2014, for 40 MW of small hydro capacity. Following presidential elections, the government has proposed changes to the feed-in tariff for renewables that would make it much more attractive to investors.

For more information please see http://global-climatescope.org/en/.