admin The Africa Energy Forum (AEF), the continent’s longest-running investor gathering, founded in 1999, held its latest edition in Cape Town from 16 to 19 June. The event had originally been scheduled to take place in Dubai before being relocated due to the conflict in the Middle East.
On the sidelines, Infinity Power, a joint venture between Emirati firm Masdar and Egyptian group Infinity Energy, announced three deals covering South Africa and Egypt. Their structure sheds light on the diversity of actors financing and building Africa’s energy future.
A question of risk appetite
The continent requires an estimated 190 billion dollars in annual energy investment between 2026 and 2030 to meet its climate and energy targets, with two thirds earmarked for clean energy, according to the International Energy Agency. And yet Africa holds close to 39% of the world’s renewable potential, while more than 600 million Africans still lack reliable access to electricity.
Lacking the resources and technical capacity to build this infrastructure alone, African governments are actively seeking financing and partners, at a time when traditional players such as France have scaled back their presence in markets deemed too risky, including Niger and Burkina Faso.
Gulf states see an opportunity in this vacuum to accelerate their own economic diversification. The UAE occupies a particular position in this dynamic. They claim 110 billion dollars invested across the continent between 2019 and 2023, of which 72 billion in renewables, more than China, France and the United Kingdom combined.
That figure, however, says less than the geography of those investments. Masdar leads large-scale projects in relatively stable markets, such as the Noor Midelt solar complex in Morocco. Phanes Group, another Emirati player in the sector, ventures where few Gulf investors dare to go: Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger, countries where political instability drives Western capital away.
The Etihad 7 programme, launched in 2022 with the aim of delivering clean electricity to 100 million Africans by 2035, reflects this appetite for risk, which sets the UAE apart not only from Western powers but from other Gulf donors as well.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar move with greater caution, concentrating their investments in more established markets. ACWA Power is developing wind capacity along the Egyptian Red Sea coast, while QatarEnergy holds stakes in Egyptian offshore gas blocks, two markets where France remains well entrenched. Across the continent, ACWA Power claims 7 billion dollars already invested in African renewables, complemented by an additional 5 billion dollar cooperation framework signed with the African Development Bank at the end of 2025.
For the highest-risk countries, struggling to mobilise Western financing and passed over by Saudi and Qatari caution, it is often the Emirati taste for risk that opens the door to essential infrastructure funding. The difference between the three Gulf strategies lies less in the generosity of the capital deployed than in the appetite for political and economic risk.
Gulf capital, foreign hands
This diversity of profiles is visible in the detail of the deals signed in mid-June in Cape Town. Infinity Power is driven by Emirati Masdar and an Egyptian entity, but the execution of its three announcements falls to other industrial powers. The Highveld solar project in South Africa was awarded, via a conditional EPC contract, to Sterling and Wilson, an Indian engineering group.
The Ngwedi cluster, also in South Africa, was entrusted to PowerChina Guizhou, a Chinese state-owned enterprise. In Egypt, the Nefer Minya agreement covers the supply of modules by Chinese manufacturer AIKO Energy. Infinity Power CEO Eng. Nayer Fouad described the signings as enabling the company to “transform a solid development pipeline into execution-ready projects.”
Egypt stands out on one structural point. Infinity Power is itself a joint venture with Egyptian firm Infinity Energy, giving Cairo a direct stake in the project’s capital rather than simply acting as a host country, a model the South African projects do not replicate: there, Infinity Power acts as sole developer, working with foreign EPC contractors.
This distinction carries considerable weight, given that energy security has been a national priority for Cairo since the power cuts of 2024, triggered by declining domestic gas production and over one billion dollars in emergency LNG imports. The UAE has committed more than 60 billion dollars to Egypt between 2020 and 2025, and Masdar is developing two further major projects there: a 5 GW floating power plant on Lake Nasser and a 2.8 GW installation at Nagaa Hammadi. It is this direct capital participation, more than the sheer volume of funds engaged, that distinguishes Egypt’s position from that of South Africa.
A two-way partnership?
This partnership appears to benefit both sides. It supports African countries seeking financing and technical expertise to build their energy infrastructure, while offering Gulf states access to considerable renewable potential in an increasingly competitive international market. For Abu Dhabi and other regional capitals, it also provides diplomatic leverage on a continent widely regarded as the world’s next frontier.
The question that will matter most to Africa’s more fragile markets is whether the Emirati example heralds a broader shift in risk appetite, including among Western investors, in the race for the continent’s energy potential, or whether persistent instability in certain African countries will continue to exclude them from the main flows of capital. For Paris, London and Washington, the UAE’s strategy may yet prove a model worth following rather than a mere regional curiosity.
