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Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) is aiming to take advantage of the improved operating environment since President Hakainde Hichilema took office in August 2021 to meet growing power demand from mining sector.

Energy leasing firm Solarise Africa (Solarise) has secured debt finance from a group of investors led by the Facility for Energy Inclusion (FEI), which it will use to grow its commercial and industrial (C&I) business in Africa.

Distributed Power Africa’s has signed a 25-year power lease agreement with Varun Beverages for a rooftop solar PV facility at the soft drinks manufacturer’s plant in Harare. Zimbabwe has emerged as a significant C&I market, reflecting the extent to which recurrent power blackouts are curtailing economic output, prompting companies and individuals to invest in solar energy.

Commercial and industrial (C&I) solar company Sustainable Power Solutions Investments on 23 August announced a $22m investment from parent company CDC Group’s Gridworks and $18m from South African investment company New GX Capital. The transaction will make Gridworks the majority shareholder in SPS.

Construction of the Lephalale solar PV plant that will power Exxaro Resources’ Grootegeluk coal mine in Limpopo province is scheduled to start in early 2023, following approval of the project by National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

Bamburi Cement, a subsidiary of Switzerland’s Holcim, has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Momnai Energy for the development of two solar PV plants.

Eskom’s approval of Pan African Resources’s Elikhulu Tailings solar PV plant to connect to the national grid makes it the first embedded project over 1MW to get full grid compliance.

Andritz's refurbishment of the Mwadingusha hydroelectric power (HEP) plant in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s Katanga province shows the potential for mobilising anchor mining clients to deliver wider power supply in DRC’s under-performing electricity supply industry. In this case the backers were Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines and China’s Zijin Mining Group who own Africa’s largest copper plant, the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project joint venture in Lualaba province. 

Nairobi-based Camco Clean Energy’s new specialised finance company Spark Energy Services is looking to fund solar PV and wind plants, plus energy efficiency initiatives for commercial and industrial (C&I) developers. Spark’s ‘impact-led’ approach intends to enable local developers in sub-Saharan markets to build scale and their balance sheets, in turn creating sustainable C&I businesses

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a commitment of up to $165m for the Leveraging Energy Access Finance Framework (Leaf) programme, which promotes solar home systems, green mini-grids and solar PV systems for commercial and industrial offtakers.

Contracts to build solar plants in South Africa and Nigeria show how large data projects are being helped by increasingly supple regulation and favourable economics, writes Marc Howard

Financial services and property group Old Mutual Zimbabwe launched a 641kW solar PV plant at its Mutual Garden Business Park headquarters, Harare on 3 November. The power plant cost $2.5m and generates enough power to meet the needs of the company’s office complex. Construction of the plant began in March 2020, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic the work took longer than anticipated.

Total Eren and Chariot’s contract to build a 40MW solar unit for South Africa’s Tharisa shows resources companies responding to shareholder pressure to go green, write Camilla Nytun and John Hamilton.

A major investment in Democratic Republic of Congo, Kamoa-Kakula is set to become Africa’s largest copper producer by Q2 2022, in a market entrepreneur Robert Friedland says will be “psychedelic”. It will be powered by the 162MW Inga II upgrade as developers work to better exploit DRC’s world-scale hydropower resource, writes Marc Howard

Goma-based renewables developer Nuru has raised $1.5m from Nairobi-headquartered investor E3 Capital, the United Kingdom’s Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) and Agence Française de Développement subsidiary Proparco.