Many companies want to invest in renewable energies, but to finding investors is challenging. To attract them, companies need more than just a good business plan. Green People’s Energy (GBE) and GET.invest provided intensive coaching for three companies, worked with them on the professionalization of their business plan and pitch presentations. The result: two of the three are in intensive negotiations with financiers.
Since September 2021, GBE has been accompanying two agricultural cooperatives and one renewable energy company; together with the European programme GET.invest, which is designed to mobilise investments in decentralised renewable energy, supported by the European Union, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria. With the coaching format tailored to the needs of the companies, the partners aimed at facilitating access to finance for Senegalese companies wanting to invest in renewable energy projects.
In three one-week face-to-face sessions, one of the GET.invest Finance Catalyst advisors and GBE staff advised the companies. In a first step, they analyzed the companies and their business plans in order to jointly stabilize technical, financial and organisational aspects for the renewable energy project and the project budget in the next step.
With the support of GET.invest and GBE, the project developers revised their project presentations, sharpened their business plans, and started to prepare their financial models. In between the individual work sessions, the GBE and GET.invest team accompanied the project developers online and supported them in their search for investors.
This intensive cooperation is now showing its first successes: two of the three companies were able to successfully submit their project documents to an international financier. Their applications are now in the first stages of in-depth analysis (due diligence). They will continue to be accompanied online by GET.invest for further advice in the process.
In addition to the three companies accompanied by face-to-face seminars, GBE and GET.invest are supporting two other project developers. Because these companies already have more experience in the renewable energies field, the advice is provided exclusively online. One of these two project developers has also been able to submit its project document to a financier and is at an advanced stage of the due diligence process.
Further information on GBE Senegal’s offer in financing renewable energy projects is available here.
