Qair secures financing for 60 MW hybrid solar-plus-storage projects in Mauritius

Renewable energy developer Qair has secured financing from SBM Bank (Mauritius) Ltd for its Stor’Sun I and II hybrid solar-plus-storage projects. These two projects are part of a larger 60 MW portfolio of hybrid plants that Qair was awarded in 2023. The total investment for the projects amounts to just under $100 million or MUR 4.5 billion.

The plants are designed to supply power to the Central Electricity Board’s (CEB) grid on the remote island located in the Indian Ocean, some 2000 kilometers east of the African coast, and over 1000 kilometers further east than Madagascar. With integrated battery storage, the facilities are expected to deliver a consistent energy output for at least 12 hours a day, mitigating the intermittency challenges associated with solar power and bolstering the stability of the national grid. The projects are now entering the construction phase.

This Qair-SMB Bank collaboration continues a strategic partnership that began in 2017 with the financing of the Helios Beauchamp solar plant.

Qair’s regional director for the Indian Ocean, Olivier Gaering, said the company chose SBM Bank to continue the partnership because of the bank’s “exceptional understanding of the challenges and specificities of large-scale, innovative projects.”

The Stor’Sun projects align with Mauritius’s Renewable Energy (RE) Roadmap 2030 and its energy transition strategy, while Qair has been active in Mauritius since 2008 and currently operates a 10 MW wind farm and just over 25.3 MW of solar parks. It said on the wider African continent, the group currently operates 65  MW across the continent, has 154 MW under financing, and is developing a pipeline of over 2 GW.

In 2025, Qair secured 800 MWh of Polish battery storage projects, and a first 49.9 MW project in the UK.