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An AfDB grant-funded project will rehabilitate and expand electricity provision in Bossaso city as Somalia looks to boost electricity provision.

Australian junior Deep Yellow has raised the equity to fund development of its flagship Tumas uranium project, where a new NamPower grid connection and 20MWp solar IPP are planned to supply power.

With crude now flowing through the 1,982km Niger-Benin Export Pipeline, a fivefold increase in oil production beckons for Niger, amid signs that Niamey is emerging from post-coup isolation and has mended ties with Ecowas and the US – a critical factor in developing the greenfield uranium mine at Dasa.

Swedfund International (Swedfund) and the European Union (EU) have offered finance to carry out environmental and technical feasibility studies for the Malawi-Zambia interconnector, a 330/400kV cross-border transmission line that spans about 184km between Zambia and Malawi.

The start of arrears payments by Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has brought some respite to independent power producers’ balance sheets. Although Ghana’s economic recovery still hinges on the conclusion of an IMF programme and wider debt restructuring, private investors have been able to win better terms for their power projects – which is important, as more capacity will be needed to meet rising demand.

Making the most of hydrocarbon resources and tackling perceived governance abuses are among the hot dossiers at the top of incoming President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko’s agenda. Policy-makers and investors need to be acutely aware that Senegal is waiting on radical change from its new Pastef government, write Waly Dione Faye and Jon Marks.

Electricity sector reform is high among new Liberian President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s much-trailed ‘100 day deliverables’, but the challenges of delivering improved services remain enormous in an industry still impacted by years of mismanagement and graft. State utility LEC has improved its performance, funding for new interconnections offers hope of more imports and there are rumours that a powership could provide short-term supply, writes Marc Howard.

Rehabilitation of the 178MW turbine at Inga II, along with plans for up to 210MW from on-site generators to tackle grid instability and increased electricity imports from Zambia are all on track, according to Ivanhoe Mines, as the Canadian operator works to provide sufficient power to Democratic Republic of Congo’s strategic Kamoa-Kakula copper mine.

Just over a year after Infinity Power acquired Lekela Power to create the largest renewable energy company in Africa, the Cairo-based developer is close to signing a power purchase agreement for a proposed 200MW wind plant close to Lekela’s existing 250MW West Bakr wind farm. There are also plans to expand Lekela’s Taiba N’Diaye wind plant in Senegal and to compete for projects in South Africa.

Canadian miner Lucara Diamond Corporation has concluded a feasibility study that paves the way for the construction of a utility-scale solar PV plant and battery storage energy system to supply power to its Karowe mine.

Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader John Atta Mills has promised to increase generation capacity to 5,000MW from the present 1,600MW if he wins December’s presidential election. Mills made the pledge in a speech to members of the Association of Ghana Industries in Accra.

The African Development Bank announced on 20 December that its board had approved a $50m senior loan to Azito Energie for the 139MW expansion of the Azito gas-fired power plant. The loan will contribute to financing the Azito Phase III project.

The Central Electricity Board (CEB) in June 2017 issued a request for information (RFI) from potential natural gas suppliers to power a 105MW-120MW combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant; the liquefied natural gas (LNG) import unit would be sited at Les Grandes Salines in the Port Louis harbour area. Mauritius Ports Authority had previously hired the Netherlands’ Royal HaskoningDHV to study possibilities for developing Port Louis as a bunkering and petroleum and LNG hub. The RFI envisaged an estimated 150,000 t/yr of gas arriving in late 2020/early 2021 following completion of a CCGT plant.

On 31 October, Oslo-based Scatec Solar and Norwegian state investment fund Norfund signed a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Electricidade de Moçambique (EdM) for a 40MWp solar photovoltaic (PV) project near Mocuba in Zambézia province. The project is a trailblazer for Mozambique, Scatec’s chief financial officer, Mikkel Tørud, told African Energy, as the first solar public private partnership (PPP) in the country, and will help catalyse the market for solar power. It is owned by Central Solar de Mocuba, whose shareholders are Scatec Solar (52.5%), KLP Norfund Investments (22.5%) and EdM (25%).

A deepening economic crisis has forced the cancellation of this year’s Luanda International Fair (Filda), which had already been postponed from July to November. It will be the first cancellation in 33 years for the event, which was held throughout Angola’s civil war, which ended in 2002. The business weekly Expansão reported that the 33rd annual fair had been cancelled due to the “financial difficulties of the country”, which has been hard hit by a sharp fall in oil revenues.