Anonymised live assignment · Investor opportunity screen · May 2026

The brief was not “find African solar projects.” It was: where can an oil-and-gas investor’s playbook translate without taking utility risk?

Felix converted a broad investor brief into four development-stage power archetypes, an explicit US$5m–US$40m equity box and a six-lens bankability screen. The original three-page pack was sent to a named investment principal; the identity and correspondence remain private.

Client: Africa-focused energy investorGeographies: DRC, Zimbabwe, Guinea, TanzaniaAsset range: 10–200 MWFormat: three-page decision screen

The mandate

A principal-level screen, not a generic market report

The investor had built upstream and midstream energy businesses in East Africa. The question was whether that experience could translate into private renewable power serving mines and processing plants. That changed the analysis: the relevant comparison was not solar versus a national generation plan, but a contracted power asset versus gas infrastructure serving a creditworthy industrial buyer.

The first working decision was to exclude broad utility procurement pipelines. The screen instead focused on demand that could be traced to operating mines, expansion programmes or mandatory local processing.

Analyst note

The strongest opportunity was not necessarily the country with the best irradiation. It was the site where industrial demand, hard-currency revenue and a realistic private-wire route could be evidenced together.

What the client actually asked Felix to solve

  • Keep the opportunity within an equity cheque of roughly US$5m–US$40m.
  • Prioritise developer-led or pre-FID entry rather than buying mature operating assets.
  • Look beyond Kenya and Zambia into DRC and the wider Southern African region.
  • Show what could fail before presenting any opportunity as investable.

How the analysis developed

The oil-and-gas analogy was used as a test, not decoration

The pack translated familiar deal elements into renewable-power equivalents: acreage became solar resource plus land rights; a gas sales agreement became the PPA; a midstream pipeline became a direct wire or dedicated transmission line; reserve certification became P50/P90 yield work; and political-risk cover remained relevant.

One difference mattered more than the similarities: commodity-price risk sits with the mining company, while the power developer can contract a fixed or indexed tariff. That only improves the risk position when the offtaker, allocation, payment security and dispatch obligations are credible.

Question challengedWhy it matteredHow it was treated
Is “mining demand” enough?A project announcement does not prove load, credit or timing.Demand had to be tied to an operating asset, expansion or processing mandate.
Does direct wire remove grid risk?It may reduce wheeling exposure but creates dedicated-line cost, land and interface risk.The line was treated as part of the project, not a free connection assumption.
Can indicative IRR be presented as value?Early return ranges can create false certainty.Returns were used as screening filters, subject to P90, CAPEX and delay stress.
Is a mining major automatically bankable?Credit sits in the contracting entity, not the brand name.Counterparty, guarantee and hard-currency revenue had to be checked separately.

Four opportunity archetypes

The output narrowed a continent into four specific origination questions

DRC Copperbelt
20–80 MW

Mine-tethered solar plus BESS

The demand thesis was copper expansion constrained by coal-heavy and limited grid supply. The commercial question was whether a USD-linked corporate PPA and direct-wire structure could support debt without transferring DRC sovereign risk back into the SPV.

18–24% screen rangeUS$8m–US$20m equity box
Zimbabwe lithium
30–120 MW

Processing-plant dedicated IPP

Local-beneficiation requirements create power demand that national planning may not serve in time. The screen focused on processor credit, hard-currency revenues, hybrid reliability and the difference between a legal processing mandate and a funded plant.

16–22% screen rangeUS$10m–US$30m equity box
Guinea corridor
50–200 MW

Pre-refinery power infrastructure

The opportunity was not simply high irradiation. It was the possibility of wiring anchor load ahead of refinery build-out. The gating questions were demand phasing, transmission responsibility, sovereign interfaces and whether the first customer could carry expansion risk.

14–19% screen rangeUS$15m–US$40m equity box
Tanzania graphite
15–60 MW

Island grid for a processing cluster

A remote cluster creates a potential premium to unreliable or unavailable network supply. The investment question was whether multiple customers genuinely diversified risk or simply multiplied weak counterparties and settlement interfaces.

19–26% screen rangeUS$5m–US$15m equity box

Reusable diligence framework

Six lenses before an opportunity is presented

Offtake
Contracting entity, credit enhancement, payment security and currency of revenues.
Grid
Direct wire or grid-connected, dispatch priority, metering, losses and curtailment allocation.
Tariff / FX
Currency, escalation, convertibility, hedging and stressed exchange-rate treatment.
Permits
Licence, land, environmental approvals, connection rights and project-specific status.
Debt
Commercial tenor, leverage, DSCR floor, reserves, security and DFI appetite.
Downside
P90 yield, 20% CAPEX overrun and six-month delay in the combined case.

The human judgement

The pack deliberately stopped before pretending to be transaction diligence

None of the four archetypes was presented as a ready deal. The conclusion was that a 30-minute alignment call should first agree geography, ticket size, return floor, risk tolerance and deal-flow cadence. Only then should Felix move into project identification, source validation, modelling and counterparty work.

What this says about the work

The deliverable did not try to impress with a long country list. It made the investor’s constraints explicit, showed where the thesis could break and created a repeatable filter for the next opportunity.

Disclosure boundary

This is an anonymised live assignment. The client name, correspondence and strategy are withheld. Opportunity ranges were early-stage filters, not realised returns or investment promises. Public-source market statements require revalidation before any live decision.

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