CrossBoundary Access
Building the electricity grid of the future in Africa, one connection at a time
Our Mission
Over 600 million people in Africa do not have power.
Studies show that mini-grids are the least cost method to bring electricity to over 260 million people, with the rest being connected through grid extensions and solar home systems (SHS).
CrossBoundary Access is on a mission to build a distributed utility for rural electrification in Africa.
At CrossBoundary Access, we believe that universal access to electricity is a vital step toward ending poverty. Alongside our partners, we finance, own, and operate mini-grids and adjacent technologies that connect rural households, community institutions, and businesses to high-quality, renewable power.
We’re aiming to bring power to 1 million people by 2025 with our distributed utility – the grid of the future.
Our Solution
CrossBoundary Access is a distributed electric utility that raises capital for portfolios of solar mini-grids that it designs, builds, and manages
Our mini-grids provide households, community institutions, and businesses with clean, reliable, and affordable electricity
Mini-grids are infrastructure, so we use infrastructure finance principles to build the grid of the future
Our Approach
Raise
We raise and blend long-term infrastructure capital. This includes equity, debt, and concessional financing.
Design
We partner with developers to design mini-grids that provide high-quality power for households, community institutions, and businesses.
Build
We build infrastructure—we are a distributed utility with assets that are built to last.
Manage
We manage mini-grid portfolios to ensure they deliver high-quality service to customers and target returns to investors.
Open Source
We are open-sourcing our investment approach for mini-grids to accelerate universal energy access in Africa
Open Source
What is Open Source?
Launched in 2020, CrossBoundary Access ‘open sourced’ the approach we and our partners developed to invest long-term, low cost infrastructure capital into mini-grids in Africa
Why Open Source?
CrossBoundary Access and Shell Foundation explain why we are taking the next step in ‘open sourcing’ our financing approach for mini-grids to accelerate universal access to electricity in Africa
News and Insights
Stay updated on the latest energy access news and insights
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CrossBoundary Access07.12.2023News ClipListen to CrossBoundary Access Associate Director Lynne Wesonga on “The Energy Talk” podcast
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CrossBoundary Access31.10.2023Press ReleaseCrossBoundary Access open sources project financing tools used to finance over $80m of mini-grids in Africa
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CrossBoundary Access31.10.2023Article“We build mini-grids”: explaining CrossBoundary Access’ project finance approach in 3 minutes
Our Team
We are global experts on energy access
