Search results

The World Bank has agreed to extend $1bn to South Africa to help the government’s energy security goals and the transition to a low carbon economy. The development policy loan is expected to help with restructuring of the power sector through the unbundling of state-owned power utility Eskom, as well as encouraging private investment in renewable energy.

US-based developer Husk Power Systems has secured funds from investors, which it will use to scale up its solar mini-grid developments in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Husk – which was established in 2008 – claimed its new Series D funding was “the largest-ever equity raise in the mini-grid industry”.

The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen) will soon launch a tender for a 3GW, 1,600km high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line to take power from renewable energy plants in Dakhla, in the disputed Sahara region, up to Kenitra and Tangier in the north.

Former finance minister Manuel Chang pleaded not guilty in a New York court on 13 July to charges over the long-running ‘tuna bond’ scandal, having been extradited to the United States from South Africa the previous day. Chang was sent to New York after a South African court had rejected his request to be tried in Maputo.

The Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) has issued an international tender for a transmission line to complete the 132kV Sondu-Homabay-Awendo power transmission project, to take electricity from the Sondu Miriu hydroelectric power (HEP) plant in Kisumu county to Awendo in Migori county in western Kenya.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) and its partners are planning to create what they call the world’s largest mini-grid market in Nigeria, using the new Leveraging Energy Access Finance (Leaf) financing model to support the Rural Electrification Agency (REA)’s Nigeria Electrification Programme (NEP).

Italy’s Studio Pietrangeli has been contracted by Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to carry out the feasibility, conceptual design and tender design for the Tanzania–Malawi interconnector project.

Energy minister Matthew Opoku Prempeh is resisting calls for electricity tariffs to rise, despite Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) recording an annual loss of at least $400m. 

One of the most ambitious claims to emerge from COP26 was that substantial public financing commitments from wealthy nations would unlock a much larger amount of international and domestic private finance. But numbers reviewed by African Energy reveal that there is a staggeringly large finance gap to bridge in Africa.

Recent wide-ranging diplomatic efforts have been directed at trying to set up Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) with developing countries. But it is still far from certain which countries (if any) will sign up, and what commitments wealthy nations can make to ensure success.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) announced on 26 April that it had approved two loans worth a combined $180m to finance the Transmission System Reinforcement and Last Mile Connectivity project in Rwanda. The AfDB is providing $140m from its sovereign window and $40m from the Africa Growing Together Fund. It had previously approved an $84.2m concessional loan from the African Development Fund in May 2021.

The Opec Fund for International Development (Ofid) is expanding its Energy Compact partnership with Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) to accelerate access to clean cooking, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. 

A major project to build a 280km 400kV transmission line from Nyakanazi to Kigoma is significantly behind schedule, Tanzania’s Auditor General reports.

With a tender for a utility-scale concentrated solar power plant likely to be launched this year, Namibia’s embrace of renewables is gaining momentum. It also offers fresh hope to advocates of CSP technology following past setbacks.

Arguments are intensifying over climate justice, the very meaning of climate finance, the role of gas as a transition fuel and – most of all – money. The combination of which means a ‘just energy transition’ that enables African nations to meet economic development targets seems a long way off.