South African renewable-energy platform Lyra Energy, which is owned by Scatec and STANLIB Infrastructure Investments, has secured a payment guarantee facility backed by the Norwegian State under the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation’s (Norad's) Sovereign Guarantee Scheme for Renewable Energy.

The facility is a payment-risk mitigation instrument. Lyra says it sits within its trading structure and improves the bankability of its commercial and industrial (C&I) offtake portfolio, giving lenders a more efficient basis for assessing payment risk across a book of corporate customers.

The company explains that it is not project funding, not a grant and not a subsidy to any shareholder, adding that it does not guarantee project returns. The facility is designed to mobilise private capital, not replace it.

“Energy traders and aggregators have an important role to play in the liberalisation of South Africa’s electricity market.

“This guarantee facility from Norad further enhances the robustness of our balance sheet and the resilience of our trading platform. It is also an important vote of confidence in Lyra’s business model, our governance and the trajectory of the platform we are building.

“By providing a clearer route to market for our projects, this instrument supports the scaling of our trading platform and new renewable-energy generation and enables Lyra to contract power in the way C&I customers actually need,” says Lyra head Eben de Vos.

Lyra was launched in 2024 to aggregate demand from medium and large C&I users and convert it into utility-scale renewable generation.

Lyra secured an electricity trading licence from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) in 2025, allowing it to buy bulk electricity from its generation assets and sell portions to C&I customers through the regulated wheeling framework.

Lyra's first project, the 255 MW Thakadu solar power plant, reached financial close on March 6 and is under construction.

The project is financed through non-recourse project debt and shareholder equity, with Standard Bank of South Africa as senior lender. Scatec is providing engineering, procurement and construction, asset management and operations and maintenance (O&M) services.

Commercial operations are expected to start in the first half of 2027.

Norad's Sovereign Guarantee Scheme for Renewable Energy is a five-year pilot with a total facility of NKr5-billion. Norad describes it as a financial instrument, not traditional grant aid.

Recipients pay a guarantee premium and administration costs and the scheme covers up to 50% of the risk exposure under a tranche, with the remaining risk borne by professional co-guarantors.

Lyra explains that sub-Saharan Africa is given special consideration under the scheme, which signed its first guarantee agreement in December 2025 alongside Sweden and Denmark, issued to the Inter-American Development Bank.

“South Africa has significant potential to expand renewable energy, but mobilising the capital needed to do so requires innovative approaches to managing risk. Norway’s guarantee scheme is intended to help address those barriers and catalyse private investment.

“The Lyra transaction demonstrates how Norwegian public financial capacity can support private-sector investment in South Africa’s growing renewable-energy market,” says Norwegian Ambassador to South Africa Anne Beathe Kristiansen.

The guarantee lands as South Africa's electricity market opens to competition. The Electricity Regulation Amendment Act provides for a competitive market and an independent transmission company and Nersa has been consulting on trading rules.

Lyra is among the traders licensed under that framework and the guarantee addresses the financing constraint that determines how quickly licensed trading becomes new generation.