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Washington-based social impact project developer C-Quest Capital (CQC) has secured significant new finance for its deployment of clean cooking stoves in sub-Saharan Africa, in the latest sign of growing interest in the sector.

The Rockefeller Foundations’ Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet has committed $50m to the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All)’s Universal Energy Facility (UEF).

A few far-sighted public officials and private equity investors have been looking at transmission and distribution (T&D) as the next big thing for the African electricity supply industry for some time. Momentum is building behind this, underlined by the recent creation of T&D-focused Gridworks by UK government-owned investor CDC. Many participants interpreted the unexpectedly large audience for the T&D session at the 13-14 November AIX: Power and Renewables meeting in London as a sign of changing times that could herald a major breakthrough in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ahead of elections next year, the team that has pushed reforms to the electricity supply industry is working to ensure international financial commitments for electrification and the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) are secured, and the broad lines of the All Progressive Congress (APC) administration’s policy continue, a senior source told African Energy. A particular focus is making sure that World Bank Group (WBG) commitments are implemented.

A tumultuous few months in Nigerian electricity distribution that included the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) threatening to withdraw the licences of eight of the country’s 11 distribution companies (discos) in October has forced progress on some of the many intractable problems preventing investment in the sector. A clearer and more balanced regulatory framework has been put in place and, with a regulatory order on electricity distribution franchising expected later this month, discos have some options for attracting investment and improving service quality.

Only a few days after its launch, solar company Ener-G-Africa has begun exports from its newly established solar panel manufacturing plant in Cape Town. The first order of 1,000 panels is being supplied to Malawi.

Off-grid liquid generation remains a costly default option for retail customers in countries with unreliable grids. Half-a-dozen grid collapses this year in Nigeria have demonstrated how unreliable and underpowered the grid is, with diesel and other small genset backups estimated to comprise as much as 12GW of off-grid liquid capacity.

Bboxx and Électricité de France (EDF) Togo have signed a €11m ($11.6m) loan agreement with the Off Grid Energy Access Fund (OGEF) to support the roll-out of off-grid solar energy to rural communities in Togo.

New regulations have been released for the off-grid energy sector in Mozambique, in an effort to unlock more private sector investment and accelerate the development of off-grid technologies.

Rolls-Royce has made an undisclosed equity investment into Kowry Energy to support the development of small-scale solar PV projects across sub-Saharan Africa. Berlin-based Kowry is focused on supporting local African solar PV developers.

The remaining contracts for the 20MWp Jambur solar PV project are “expected to be signed in the last quarter of this year, after which design and construction will begin”, National Water and Electricity Company (Nawec) senior power engineer Ebrima A Bah told African Energy.

Starsight, CrossBoundary, Daystar and Blue Camel are among a growing number of operators who are building a major corporate business as companies seek secure electricity supply, writes Marc Howard.

Distributed Power Africa (DPA) recently completed the installation of a 1.8MWp diesel-solar hybrid plant at Tanganda Tea Company’s Ratelshoek estate in Manicaland, which forms part of a wider 7.5MW solar programme across the company’s estates. Tanganda’s sites had suffered from frequent power cuts in recent years that interrupted tea production.

Gridworks hopes its recently awarded concessions in DRC will demonstrate the case for larger-scale isolated grids in Africa. The company says the project offers the size and critical mass that is missing from most mini-grid models, which it hopes will create efficiencies and reduce costs, writes Dan Marks.

The Nigerian government is caught between a rock and a hard place as it tries to square the need to reduce subsidies to the electricity sector with protecting customers and the economy from price rises when they are already hard hit by Covid-19. Distribution companies (discos) are absorbing substantial losses due to reductions in industrial demand and challenges protecting revenue through disconnections and meter inspections. However, there is some confidence that the sector continues to move in the right direction, with enthusiasm about better collaboration between stakeholders and initiatives for franchises within existing disco boundaries.