ABOUT
US
An impact infrastructure fund partnering with landlords to catalyse investments in clean utilities projects targeted at low-to-moderate income (LMI) households in Southern and East Africa.
Surging utility burdens and climate change deepen economic and social disparities in the housing sector. LMI households struggle to afford resilient housing and landlords have limited access to affordable capital for portfolio modernization. This means this sector is most at risk of being left behind in the energy transition, thus affecting living standards and inclusive communities in the region.
OUR
VALUES
Adequate living standards & wellbeing for LMI households
Support of workers in a green & just transition
Inclusive & Sustainable communities
HOW WE WORK
We mobilize concessionary capital to expand access to clean utilities for vulnerable households. Our innovative business model, built on partnerships with major landlords, aggregates utility demand and enhances credit quality to catalyze commercial capital at scale.
Beneficiaries:
- LMI households
- Household income less than $1600 per month
Landlords:
- Regulated affordable or social housing landlord.
- Minimum of 3000 housing units in portfolio.
- Retail landlord serving disadvantaged community.
Projects:
- Anchor technologies: solar PV, battery storage, clean cooking and central water heating.
- Supplementary technologies: water harvesting, waste management, space heating and cooling, air insulation technologies.
Value added:
- Asset Management
- Project Development
- Energy Modelling & analysis
- System co-design
Our project development team is responsible for packaging and developing the fund’s project pipeline. The team works with 3rd party EPCs (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) and technology companies who provide the construction, installation and maintenance of the clean utility infrastructure.
OUR AWARDS
Winner of East & Southern Africa region of Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance 2024 & Endorsed during New York City's Climate Week.
Mzansi Clean Energy Capital developed the Clean Utilities for Affordable Housing Instrument which was selected out of 85 instruments to represent the East and Southern Africa region in the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (The Lab) 2024 cohort and was one of the 10 instruments endorsed during New York City Climate Week in September 2024. The Lab is an investor-led, public-private initiative that accelerates innovative, well designed, early-stage climate finance solutions and instruments. The programme is administered by the Climate Policy Initiative.
Secured the 1st Self-Assessed FAST-Infra label in South Africa
The FAST-Infra Label is a credible, consistent, and globally applicable labelling system designed to identify and evaluate sustainable infrastructure projects. The label’s framework is structured around four core dimensions of sustainability: Environmental, Social, Governance, and Resilience (E, S, G, R) dimensions. These dimensions ensure uniformity and comparability in evaluating sustainability performance of infrastructure across the global infrastructure finance market. Our project received positive contributions claimed under 3 categories: Climate Change Mitigation; Resilience & climate adaptation; Inclusivity & Gender.
Accepted to the Fast-Infra Access Programme jointly funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the FAST-Infra.
The FAST-Infra Access Programme (Access Programme), jointly funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the FAST-Infra initiative, selected its firsts participating projects: Our Clean Utilities Model for Affordable Housing projects in South Africa was selected as one of the participating projects. The Access Programme supports early-stage infrastructure projects, particularly in low-income contexts, by providing a repayable grant that covers the cost of independent verification. This verification is a key requirement for obtaining the FAST-Infra Verified Label. As part of the verification process, Bureau Veritas will be conducting the independent assessment of the project.