African Transmission – The Unsung Hero

From South Africa’s transmission procurement push to Uganda’s first independent transmission project and the mining corridors of Central and Southern Africa, the market is starting to test whether transmission can become a financeable asset class rather than just a public-sector obligation.

For years, generation has been the lead singer of the development band, with capital and human resources focused on delivering more megawatts of generating capacity. The question was whether a solar park, gas plant, hydro scheme or wind farm could secure a long-term offtaker and a debt package to match. Transmission sat in the background, usually as a constraint, a delay item or a sovereign problem to be solved without the assistance of the private sector. In 2026, that hierarchy is changing. The issue is no longer simply whether power can be produced. It is whether it can travel to where it is needed.

That matters because transmission is often seen as harder to finance than generation. A power plant can traditionally point to a contracted, long term, revenue stream. A transmission project often creates value that is obvious economically but more difficult to isolate contractually. It may reduce congestion, widen access, strengthen resilience, connect renewable resource to demand centres, support growth or further enable cross-border trade.

All these things matter. However, they do not automatically produce the sort of ringfenced cashflow that project financiers instinctively like. That is why sovereign borrowing and utility balance sheets have remained the dominant tools for the sector. It is also why the current experimentation with alternative structures matters so much. The continent is not simply building more transmission lines. It is trying to work out who pays for the grid of the future, and on what terms.

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