For the past couple of months, one of the lovely things about the weather is the sun shines. If you think about Africa most of the places you think of the sun shing every day and a logical step would be they need more solar polar to generate electricity.

In an article by Allan Olingo of the Associated Press, somebody has thought about this is former New York City Mayor and founder of Bloomberg News, Michael R Bloomberg. He is also the UN Secretary General Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions. It helps he had the ability to donate $285 million through the Bloomberg Philanthropies to strengthen clean energy industries in emerging and developing countries.

There are 600 million people in Africa and many do not are not connected to the grid or pay utility bills. Rather than paying to put up more solar panels, Mr. Bloomberg will invest in strengthening market design, regulatory capacity, technical expertise and industry institutions, areas viewed as essential for attracting private investment and accelerating use of renewable energy.

If you think about the North American companies there is a mixture of private and public utilities that generate electricity to put on the grid and that is distributed to every household for a fee. There is a state regulatory agency to ensure the companies spend money to keep the grid up to day and raise fees for service. The regulatory agency writes the policies that if someone puts up solar panels, the electricity can flow into the grid, and they can receive a monetary reward. The utilities can go the bond market to raise money to build the infrastructure to ensure the grid keeps meeting the demands of consumers and industry.

In Africa, there is weak market design, limited grid planning, slow permitting processes and fragmented regulatory systems.

If you think about Africa, you likely think about sunny days, with the Bloomberg initiative perhaps scaling up the projects will be possible and the systems in North America will be similar to the systems in Africa.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, many of these companies have a large infrastructure that has been built up and can profitably be accessed. Sometimes governments help pay for the infrastructure, but it is the private sector that benefits the most and that can translate to profitability and paying dividends.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.