The U.K. government has announced £100 million ($126.11 million) of extra funding for renewable energy projects in Africa.



The money will be used to support the Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP), which was set up in 2015 and supported by £48 million in initial funding from the U.K.



The REPP's broad goal is to "catalyze the growth" of the renewable energy sector in sub-Saharan Africa by helping developers to "overcome barriers to finance."



The program currently backs 18 renewable energy projects in countries such as Tanzania, Burundi, Nigeria and Kenya. These schemes support everything from solar, wind and biomass to hydro and geothermal.



The U.K. has made a commitment to invest £5.8 billion in international climate finance by the year 2020. The new tranche of funding, announced Tuesday, will assist up to 40 new renewable energy schemes in sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years, the government said.



"This £100 million will help communities harness the power of their natural resources to provide hundreds of thousands of people with electricity for the first time," Claire Perry, the Energy and Clean Growth minister, said in a statement.



"Building these clean, reliable sources of energy will also create thousands of quality jobs in these growing green economies," Perry added.