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The future of electric power generation in South Africa is no longer in the hands of state-owned utility Eskom. Although it controls more than 80% of installed capacity, including 45GW of coal-fired generation, changes in the electricity supply industry are now being driven by the installation of many gigawatts-worth of captive solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, following the removal of licence restrictions.

Ghana’s independent power producers (IPPs) are moving closer to a deal with the government over its arrears, as a wider – and long-awaited – multilateral debt restructuring package led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) slowly comes to fruition.

Organisers made big claims about investment flows at the AfDB-backed Africa Investment Forum 2023 Market Days event in Morocco, James Gavin reports from Marrakech.

Privately-owned indie Perenco has long been a significant upstream player in west and central Africa and it is now extending its position with new discoveries and plans to increase production in Chad, Republic of Congo and elsewhere, as its general manager Benoît de la Fouchardiere tells African Energy.

African Energy examines the events surrounding the recent talks in late October between President General Abdel-Fattah Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Lieutenant General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (often known as Hemedti).

State-owned Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) is seeking a consultant to conduct a feasibility study on a proposed 40MW floating solar PV plant on the Kamburu hydroelectric power (HEP) plant reservoir.

The Zambian government has said it will abandon the current 30-day pricing cycle for petroleum products and instead move to a 90-day review period, reversing a policy that was set late last year. However, the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) has told African Energy that changing the price review mechanism cannot happen “overnight” and a number of issues need to be assessed before the current 30-day cycle can be discarded.

Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed AuKing Mining has raised $1.25m to fund drilling at the Mkuju uranium project in Namtumbo district.  

Dublin-headquartered investor TechMet has taken an option to invest up to $50m in London Stock Exchange-listed Rainbow Rare Earths’ Phalaborwa project in Limpopo province.

The issue leads with a special report on South Africa. In a major investigation, African Energy’s editorial and data teams have probed unanswered questions about South Africa’s energy transition, which is being shaped by large corporations and their need for reliable, low-carbon power. The results show a booming private sector electricity market that is also unpredictable and freighted with risk for all participants.   Our usual power coverage leads with Ethiopia, where tensions are ratcheting up with neighbouring Eritrea. Sources say five more turbines are expected to come online at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in the coming months, even as questions remain over the megaproject’s economic impact and whether the infrastructure exists to increase exports. African Energy re-examines the prospects for the Kudu gas field, which could provide substantial gas-to-power capacity for Namibia’s domestic market and for export to South Africa. Officials say it will proceed independently of recent massive Orange Basin discoveries further south, but industry observers are sceptical of the electricity export plans, citing the lack of power transmission infrastructure. Oil and gas coverage also includes an interview with Perenco general manager Benoît de la Fouchardiere focused on the privately-owned indie's regional ambitions. African Energy reports on big claims about investment flows at the AfDB-backed Africa Investment Forum 2023 Market Days event in Morocco. The African Energy View focuses on Algeria, where President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has dismissed PM Aymen Benabderrahmane and all eight vice presidents at Sonatrach, having already removed the national oil company’s chief Toufik Hakkar. The clear-out confirmed rumours circulating in Algiers for weeks that suggested Tebboune is seeking to inject more dynamism into government and place key allies in prominent posts ahead of elections next year when he expects to stand again.

Houston-based Murphy Oil has said it will sell some non-core assets in North America to fund work on the Paon discovery in Block CI-103, one of five Côte d’Ivoire offshore blocks it picked up in June 2023.

 Sources say five more turbines are expected to come online at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in the coming months, adding a huge amount of capacity to the grid, even as questions remain over the megaproject’s economic impact and whether the infrastructure exists to increase exports. Meanwhile, Ethiopia faces the prospect of renewed conflict as tensions ratchet up with neighbouring Eritrea, writes Our Ethiopia Correspondent.

Infinity Power has signed a 20-year capacity charge agreement (CCA) with utility Société Nationale d’Electricité du Sénégal (Senelec) for the Taïba N’Diaye battery plant. The storage system will operate in tandem with Infinity’s nearby Taïba N’Diaye wind plant, which was commissioned in February 2020. According to African Energy Live Data, Taïba will be the largest on-grid battery energy storage system in West Africa by some distance.

The utilities of the four-nation Organisation for the Development of the Gambia River (L’Organisation pour la mise en Valeur du Fleuve Gambie, OMVG) have signed a transmission service agreement for the 1,677km ‘Loop’ high-voltage power transmission line. The $685m development comprises 4,000 pylons and 15 substations and interconnects the grids of Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal. As its name suggests, the 225kV, double-circuit line forms a circular network spanning the four countries.

South Africa’s state power utility Eskom has launched the Hex battery energy storage system (Bess) at Worcester in the Western Cape’s Breede Valley, after more than a year of construction work. The facility is the first to be finished under phase one of Eskom’s Bess scheme announced in July 2022.