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The Kelvin coal power plant has signed a two-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the City of Johannesburg to supply an additional 100MW.

Enel Green Power (EGP) has told African Energy that its 138MW Garob wind project in South Africa is expected online “in the coming weeks”. The project was selected as a preferred bidder in an expansion of the fourth round of the renewable energy independent power producer procurement programme (REIPPP4) in June 2015.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has awarded a grant to Daybreak Power Solutions, a subsidiary of Nigeria’s Daystar Power Group, for a feasibility study into new solar PV and storage mini-grids for business offtakers.

The World Bank Group is seeking expressions of interest (EoIs) from consultants to provide an analysis of the market readiness for private sector participation in solar hybrid mini-grids in Niger.

Bboxx Kenya agreed in January a KSh1.6bn ($15m) debt package with local commercial bank SBM Bank Kenya. The Private Infrastructure Development Group’s GuarantCo is underwriting the deal with a KSh1.2bn partial credit guarantee.

Dutch cooperative and social investor Oikocredit will invest $1.5m to boost energy access in rural communities.

The second phase of the Sierra Leone mini-grids project being undertaken by Winch Energy is expected to be completed in the coming months, according to vice president for business development Chris Kanani.

A move towards independent power transmission schemes being allowed to wheel power to private clients could prove a boon for commercial and industrial (C&I) developers. Panellists at the 20 September AIX Kenya roundtable predicted the environment will now become more favourable, following the election victory of William Ruto, after years when “we saw the government and utility push back on the C&I space owing to its revenue implications”.

With elections coming up on 8 May, the power crisis in South Africa has peaked at an inconvenient time for President Cyril Ramaphosa. While opposition parties, particularly the Democratic Alliance, are seeking to make political capital out of the catastrophic deterioration in technical and financial performance at Eskom, there are also concerns that no substantial policy measures are likely until after the elections. This could have implications for policies such as the unbundling of transmission, where the government had aimed to appoint directors for a new entity around mid-year.

The multi-donor Universal Energy Facility has issued a Wave 2 tender for mini-grid projects in Democratic Republic of Congo, while results are awaited on its call for bids in Madagascar and Sierra Leone.

The Korea Institute for the Advancement of Technology (KIAT) is to invest $12.4m in four solar PV mini-grid projects in Nigeria, under a deal signed with the Rural Electrification Agency (REA).

New financing for West Africa-focused hybrid solar PV project developer Daystar Power underlines the extent that commercial and industrial (C&I) markets are gaining traction with development finance institutions (DFIs) and others. Daystar Power has completed a $38m series B funding round led by Denmark’s Investment Fund for Developing Countries and including French impact infrastructure fund Stoa, French DFI Proparco – backed by a guarantee from the European Union under the African Renewable Energy Scale-Up facility (ARE Scale-Up) – and Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

President Cyril Ramaphosa used his state of the nation address to set out measures the government is taking to combat the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, with energy close to the top of the list of priorities. New procurement may finally get under way soon, writes Dan Marks

Africa’s largest off-grid solar company Greenlight Planet has raised $90m of new financing as early Q3 figures show revenue has already surpassed Q1 levels despite the coronavirus pandemic. Further equity raisings are planned to fund the company’s expansion ambitions, writes Dan Marks