Hassan Allam Utilities secures $30m EAAIF loan for Minya solar

Published: 2026-07-08T13:35:30.000Z

Hassan Allam Utilities has pulled in another slug of development finance for its clean-energy push, securing a 30 million dollar senior secured loan from the Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund to advance a major solar project in Minya. The facility, arranged by the fund known as EAAIF and managed by Ninety One, will chiefly back a scheme pairing 1,000 megawatts of solar generation with a 660 megawatt-hour battery storage system, an asset expected to rank among the single largest solar developments anywhere in Africa once it is finished. Beyond the raw capacity, the battery element is the clever part, letting the plant bank surplus midday sunshine and release it when demand peaks, which helps steady a grid under mounting strain. The Minya project is being co-developed with Infinity Power, the renewables platform jointly owned by the UAE's Masdar and Egypt's Infinity, and it slots into a broader construction effort in the governorate where an engineering contract worth around 560 million dollars was awarded only weeks ago. Commercial operation is targeted for the third quarter of 2027. What makes EAAIF's role notable is that it is stepping in as the sole lender with a primary claim, effectively de-risking a large greenfield asset so a local sponsor can lead it, exactly the kind of blended-finance structure that has become central to funding the energy transition across emerging markets where long-term private debt is otherwise scarce. The loan also deepens a relationship that is quickly becoming a fixture. EAAIF extended a separate 40 million dollar facility to Hassan Allam Utilities back in late 2024 to support a 2.3 gigawatt pipeline of wind and solar work, including a major Suez wind project, and the two transactions together read as a growing vote of confidence in Egypt's renewable ambitions. For Hassan Allam Utilities, the investment and development arm of one of Egypt's largest privately owned conglomerates, it reinforces a position as one of the country's leading private clean-power developers, at a time when the parent group is also winning big contracts abroad, including a recent award at Saudi Arabia's Diriyah development. The regional stakes are considerable. Egypt still leans heavily on fossil fuels for electricity, but rising demand and a national target of drawing 42 per cent of its power from renewables by 2030 have pushed solar, wind and storage firmly up the agenda, and the country is positioning itself as a clean-energy hub linking Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The Masdar tie-up underscores how Gulf capital is flowing into that transition, mirroring the wider contest between Egyptian developers and Gulf giants like ACWA Power and Masdar for the region's renewable build-out. Development finance, meanwhile, keeps quietly doing the unglamorous work of making these megaprojects bankable.