By: Renewables now

French sustainable investor Mirova said today it is providing a USD-15-million (EUR 13m) senior secured facility to communications services provider iSAT Africa Mauritius Limited to help it deploy fully solar-powered mobile towers in Liberia and Zambia.

The 10-year facility comes from the Mirova Gigaton Fund. It will back the rollout of Network as a Service (NaaS) and Energy as a Service (EaaS) solutions as part of iSAT’s 1,000-tower expansion strategy across Sub-Saharan Africa. The 2/4-5G towers will be off grid, powered by solar energy and battery storage. They will reach previously unconnected communities or improve services in existing mobile networks.

Replacing diesel-powered rural telecom towers with solar-powered ones can significantly reduce CO2 emissions from mobile network operations. “This investment reflects Mirova’s ambition to accelerate the clean energy transition in hard-to-abate sectors, while delivering tangible social benefits,” John Kimotho Investment Director, Mirova Kenya, commented in an announcement today.