The European Commission (EC) will contribute €300m in promoting renewable energy generation across Africa.

The contribution is said to be part of the commission’s broader efforts in the execution of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

It coincides with last week’s announcement of the preparation of 19 new renewable energy projects made by the European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica in Conakry, Guinea.

The projects will see an investment of possibly €4.8bn for generating an additional 1.8GW of clean energy in Africa as part of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI).

Mimica said: "With these 19 new projects, potentially worth €4.8bn of investments, the European Union is delivering on its promises. We are turning our pledges into real projects with true impact on the ground.

“The EU hereby reaffirms its leading role in supporting the African continent in the promotion of renewable energies for the improvement of energy access for African citizens."

EC’s contribution in the new projects will help reach its 2020 goal of providing sustainable energy to 30 million people besides annually neutralizing 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Also, it will help in 5GW of new renewable energy production in Africa which is half of AREI’s key objective of generating 10GW clean energy by 2020.

AREI is also looking to tap on the continent’s potential to produce up to 300GW energy from renewable sources by 2030. For the 2014-2020 period, the EU had allocated development funding of nearly €2.7bn for supporting sustainable energy generation in Sub-Saharan Africa.