The developments worth your attention.

Egypt got its Phase 1 money this week, and the detail matters more than the headline. On 28 October Scatec signed loan agreements for the first 569 MW of Dandara. The non recourse package is USD 217 million from EBRD, AfDB and EIB against estimated Phase 1 capex of USD 271 million, so roughly 80% debt, sitting behind a 25 year PPA with Egypt Aluminium and a sovereign guarantee. The archive shows the pattern. Development banks carry construction risk and the state carries offtake risk, and that is how Egypt's big private solar now gets built.

Scatec says it signed loan agreements and is starting construction. It does not say financial close, and neither will I until a primary source does. The lender figures also do not add up cleanly. EBRD at USD 63 million, AfDB at up to USD 66 million and EIB at up to USD 90 million sum to USD 219 million, so I treat the AfDB and EIB numbers as ceilings. I don't yet know what has been drawn.

The rest of the week was thinner than its headlines. KenGen spent KSh15.5 billion on capex in the year to June 2026 while cutting borrowings by KSh12.2 billion, which is a utility funding itself rather than a financing event. South Africa's first 2,000 MW private gas tender reportedly closed with no preferred bidder, and I have one social media post behind that, so the stated cause is unconfirmed. For a lender the read is simple. A sovereign guarantee gets Egyptian solar signed, and fuel supply is the missing piece in South African gas.