Towards sustainable financing models for micro-hydro plants in Sub-Saharan African countries: A theoretical review

Micro-hydro plants (MHPs) have been identified as a proven and promising opportunity to alleviate energy poverty in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the absence of “lowest-cost, long-term financing models” is found to be one of the major barriers to wide-spread adoption of this technology in the region. This paper presents a review of the factors underlying this absence and using the van Egmond and de Vries’ sustainable finance model builds a framework that visualises critical linkages in MHP development crucial to designing sustainable financing models.   Key words: Micro-hydro plants (MHPs), Sub-Saharan African countries, sustainable financing models.