Electrifying 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa will require substantial investments. Integrated electrification models inform key policy decisions and electricity access investments in many countries. While current electrification models apply sophisticated geospatial methods, they often make simplistic assumptions about financing conditions. Here we establish cost of capital values, reflecting country and electrification mode (that is, grid extension, minigrids and stand-alone systems), and specific risks faced by investors and integrate them into an open source electrification model. We find that the cost of capital for off-grid electrification is much higher than currently assumed, up to 32.2%. Accounting for finance shifts approximately 240 million people from minigrids to stand-alone systems in our main scenario, suggesting a more cost-effective electrification mode mix than previously suggested. In turn, electrification models based on uniform cost of capital assumptions increase the per kWh cost of electricity by 20%, on average. Upscaling and mainstreaming off-grid finance can lower electrification cost substantially.

为撒哈拉以南非洲的 6 亿人供电需要大量投资。综合电气化模型为许多国家的关键政策决策和电力接入投资提供信息。尽管当前的电气化模型应用了复杂的地理空间方法，但它们通常对融资条件做出简单的假设。在这里，我们建立了资本价值成本，反映了国家和电气化模式（即电网扩展、小型电网和独立系统）以及投资者面临的具体风险，并将它们整合到开源电气化模型中。我们发现，离网电气化的资本成本远高于目前的假设，高达 32.2%。在我们的主要场景中，财务会计将大约 2.4 亿人从小型电网转移到独立系统，建议比以前建议的更具成本效益的电气化模式组合。反过来，基于统一资本成本假设的电气化模型平均每千瓦时电力成本增加 20%。升级和主流化离网金融可以大大降低电气化成本。