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Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) is inviting bids by 30 June for the design, manufacture, supply, installation and commissioning of three substations and a new transmission line in the north-west of the country. The contract will involve the extension of the 132kV line bay at the Beles Sugar Factory substation, a new 132/33/15kV Pawei substation and 132/33-kV Bullen substation, and 132kV transmission lines from the Beles Sugar Factory through Pawei to Bullen.

The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) on 12 October granted environmental authorisation to Eskom for construction and operation of a nuclear power plant of up to 4,000MW in Duynefontein, Northern Cape. The environmental authorisation process has been under way since 2007, resulting in five sites being considered: Brazil and Schulpfontein in the Northern Cape, Duynefontein and Bantamsklip in the Western Cape, and Thyspunt in the Eastern Cape.

An initiative begun earlier this year to streamline the renewable energy independent power producers procurement (REIPPP) programme is causing concern among developers, who fear the new system might prejudice projects in which large sums of money have already been invested. Renewable Energy Development Zones (REDZ) were conceived following a request from the Department of Energy (DoE) that the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) find a way to speed up the lengthy and costly process of obtaining environmental authorisation for renewable power projects, according to Rainer Nowak, director at South African law firm Webber Wentzel and board member of the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (Sapvia).

London’s Commercial Court has ruled that Heritage must reimburse Tullow Oil for a disputed $313m tax payment, in a case highlighting the complex behind-the-scenes negotiations involved in putting together a major oil deal in Africa. 
The Ugandan Revenue Authority sought the amount as capital gains tax on Heritage Oil after it earned $1.45bn from the January 2010 sale of its assets to Tullow. Heritage disputed the payment, so Tullow paid the tax to enable the sale and subsequent farm-down to go ahead.

East Africa-focused offgrid supplier Mobisol has strengthened its capital base by drawing on a new senior loan facility from the Finnish Fund for Industrial Co-operation (Finnfund). The additional €10m ($11.7m) funding will support further expansion in East Africa, where impact investor Mobisol has installed nearly 10MW of capacity. Finnfund provided an earlier senior loan in 2016 to support operations in Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya. As of June, Mobisol had installed over 85,000 solar home systems on households and businesses in the three countries, giving access to clean energy to over 425,000 people.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government has appointed recruitment consultants to find new senior management to revive the national utility as it seeks to play a positive role in reinforcing the dilapidated transmission and distribution system and supporting increased domestic generation and import capacity.Lands, mines and energy minister Patrick Sendolo told African Energy the government saw Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC)’s weaknesses as “a key constraint” to overhauling the power sector, but the utility was not in a fit state for privatisation. Even though, as a rule “government companies don’t work”, Monrovia had decided to keep LEC in public hands for now, he said in Hamburg on 5 May.

With new generation capacity increasing fuel costs, electricity tariffs will rise from 1 January 2018 for the first time since 1994. A cabinet meeting on 6 October approved new tariffs for end-users of electricity services supplied by Société Nigérienne d’Electricité (Nigelec) for the period 2018 to 2022. The government’s decision is based on a tariff study commissioned by the Autorité de Régulation du Secteur de l’Energie au Niger.

One signal that Eskom’s plans to source power are not yet set in stone comes from analysis of its transmission options, with plans evolving for a high capacity EHV transmission system to form a backbone of high load transmission across South Africa – the so-called KV 765 super grid. SA now has only three 765kV lines (the majority of the grid is 400kV) but according to

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced a €60m ($65m) loan for Kenya’s Last Mile Connectivity project, a programme to better utilise the existing grid by extending the low-voltage network to households within 600 metres of existing transformers. The project aims to connect 300,000 households to the grid. The Agence Française de Développement and the European Union are also supporting the project.

Algeria’s energy authorities have staked their upstream strategy and their international credibility on the largest licensing round ever held in the country. It is the first to be held since amendments to the hydrocarbons law were passed in January 2013, so will test whether commercial terms have been improved enough to attract substantial international interest. The perimeters on offer include a high proportion of frontier and unconventional resources as well as licences in areas which are both more prospective and well-connected to existing pipeline and processing infrastructure.

ETHIOPIA: Norplan consortium awarded hydro study; KENYA: German loan for renewables

A consortium of South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Posco International signed a contract on 14 January to build the 1,300MW Umashe combined-cycle power plant in Biskra province. The $730m contract was signed with the Hyenco joint venture of Hyundai and Sonelgaz and work is expected to take 60 months. The power plant will have an average power generation capacity of 968m MWh/yr.

Renewable energy company Fenix International has appointed Jit Bhattacharya as its chief technology officer. Pointing to the trend for established executives from technology and finance companies to move into offgrid, Bhattacharya, best known for his pioneering work in electric vehicles, including energy storage systems, will relocate from Silicon Valley to Uganda. Bhattacharya has been a senior manager in Apple’s special projects group since 2014. Before that he headed Mission Motors, a technology developer for electric vehicles (including a record-breaking electric motorcycle).

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) signed a loan agreement on 13 January for a Y17.3bn ($170m) loan for the 100MW Maputo combined cycle gas power plant project. Jica said the project, which will use domestic gas, aims to stabilise and improve power supply in the south, which is on a separate grid from the centre and north. Demand for electricity in the south is expected to grow at an average of 18%/yr over the next five years, making increased generation capacity a priority.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) began a two-day public hearing on 23 June on Eskom’s request for an immediate tariff increase. Of particular concern was the problem posed to municipalities of an immediate increase in the cost of the power they resell as they are no longer able to increase the sale price of electricity during the year. There were numerous calls for the government to consider raising funds by other means, in particular through private capital and additional debt. However, Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe rejected privatisation for the time being. Nersa is set to make a decision on the application on 29 June.