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Global Alliance for People and Planet and the Norwegian government have pledged more funding to support the development of solar power in Sahel countries.

BP’s commitment to become a renewables-driven energy company has met with some shareholder scepticism, as it is hydrocarbons that still drive profits, while climate campaigners see the UK supermajor, predictably, doing too little to speed the transition while spending too much (through its arts sponsorship, for example) on ‘greenwashing’. (The same can be said for all of the ‘Big Five’ majors, to at least some extent.)

Hull-based HiiROC expects to install a number of thermal plasma electrolysis units at gas flaring sites in Egypt in 2023, after signing aN MOU with Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company. The programme is part of a wider series of pilot projects that HiiROC hopes will demonstrate the commercial viability of producing what it calls ‘emerald hydrogen’, writes John Hamilton.

World leaders failed to secure a binding global treaty on reducing carbon emissions at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen – not least due to opposition from a radical group including Venezuela and Sudan, as well as differences between global giants led by the United States and China. Leaders did secure a deal to limit

European leaders are confronting the urgent need to diversify energy supplies away from Russia, while also somehow keeping to their commitments to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, that they made – indeed pioneered – at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, just four months ago.  African Energy examines the options and projects under discussion including gas and electricity imports and hydrogen prospects.

As the hype around hydrogen gets ever louder, governments and developers are putting forward grandiose plans to manufacture green hydrogen – ‘the new oil and gas’ – across the continent. African Energy has been sceptical about the hydrogen boom’s relevance to economies that are hard pressed to finance basic needs, but high hopes are being generated in countries like Mauritania and Namibia, where schemes to install an unimaginable 65GW of hydrogen-driven capacity are promised, writes John Hamilton.

The Namibian government is continuing to negotiate a contract with its preferred bidder, Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, for the country’s first large green hydrogen (GH2) project.

National utility Eskom is gauging interest in a $10bn plan to become carbon neutral by 2050. The plan was first devised by the Eskom Sustainability Task Team and hinges on South Africa having one of the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world, providing plenty of scope for emissions reductions.

Aggreko has been awarded a contract by Electricité de France subsidiary EDF La Réunion to help support conversion of the coal-fired Bois-Rouge power plant on Réunion island to 100% biomass. Aggreko said the conversion would lower direct emissions by 84% compared to the plant’s current operating levels.

Japan’s pledge to invest some $30bn in Africa over the next three years has underlined the Asian economic giant’s commitment to rapidly advance its relations, as well as to expand its presence, on a continent where Tokyo’s involvement has too often lagged behind other big nations.

Germany and US-based experimental energy storage and trading company H2-Industries has obtained preliminary approval from Egypt’s General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone to develop an unprecedentedly large $3bn waste-to-hydrogen plant in East Port Said using thermolyzing technology. The project also includes a substantial power generation component. African Energy’s John Hamilton spoke to H2-I executive chairman Michael Stusch to obtain details of capacities, financing, expected pricing, and the next steps.

Frequently treated as an afterthought to electrification, clean cooking equipment suppliers have quietly been making inroads on the back of deepening supply chains, technological innovation and maturing business models, writes Dan Marks.

A new era of energy co-operation between North Africa and Europe is emerging amid a raft of export-focused projects ranging from renewables-powered electricity links to green hydrogen and data centres. Some of the plans are undoubtedly speculative but others are advancing towards financial close and construction, write John Hamilton, Jon Marks and Our Casablanca Correspondent.

Nigeria’s recently launched Energy Transition Plan aims to make Abuja’s target of net zero emissions by 2060 a reality, but the debt-for-climate deal proposed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo could be even more important in relieving more immediate economic pressures – if creditors agree to provide the funds requested for a new deal that promotes gas as the key ‘transition fuel’.

Growing alarm over the scale of the climate emergency and the impossibility of limiting the global temperature increase to just 1.5ºC by 2100 has put Africa’s climate finance conundrum into the spotlight during COP27 in Egypt.  Divisions over the future role of gas in energy transition have split the continent – which will not get all the new money it wants to help it adapt to the consequences of climate change, writes John Hamilton in Sharm El Sheikh.