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The Ministry of Energy and Water, Electricité du Mali and project company Ségou Solaire SA signed a 25-year power purchase agreement and other contracts on 9 July for a 33MW solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Ségou. Ségou Solaire is 50% owned by Norway’s Scatec Solar, 32.5% by the World Bank’s IFC InfraVentures and 17.5% by local project development company Africa Power 1. The project is an important milestone for Mali, where a breakthrough ceasefire agreement between the government and the Coalition of Azawad Movements was signed in June after fighting resumed early this year.

Eskom has agreed to export 300MW of power to Zambia for the next three months to help the country tackle a worsening power supply deficit. Energy minister Matthew Nkhuwa had previously ruled out imports, saying Zambia could not afford to pay for more power, but the power deficit has jumped from 273MW in May 2019 to 690MW, owing to declining water levels in Lake Kariba and the Itezhi Tezhi dam, described by Zesco as the worst scenario in over 25 years.

The Seychelles is looking to a number of strategies to ensure that it maintains 100% electricity supply coverage on its main and nearby islands, while significantly reducing its costly heavy fuel oil dependency. Environment, energy and climate change minister Wallace Cosgrow told the Africa Energy Forum (AEF) in Mauritius on 19 June that, with oil prices rising, the cost “presents a big challenge” to the island economy, which is also challenged by rising sea levels as a result of climate change.

The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen) has launched a request
for qualification to design, build, carry out operation and maintenance (O&M) and finance the 300MW-380MW Noor Midelt Phase I solar project. Masen plans to use concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) units to produce electricity during daytime and secure five hours of peak production after sunset, from CSP with thermal storage. Following the pattern of recent contract awards in Morocco – and peer group markets including South Africa and Dubai – pricing of the electricity is expected to be very competitive to win the contracts.

The optimism that prevailed ten years ago about jatropha curcas as a biodiesel crop has evaporated in the face of market realities. One of the latest victims, Belgian biotech firm Quinvita, closed in January, with Filip Lesaffer of Quinvita shareholders Think2act telling the Belgian economic daily De Tijd that the company had lost too much money and the pipeline of projects had completely dried up. Studies funded by Belgian development aid and carried out by researchers from Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, part of the University of Liège, in collaboration with local farmers in the Dialocoto area of Senegal, concluded that planting jatropha as a monoculture and using external labour on large areas was not a profitable model.

The African Development Fund, managed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), has approved a €4.02m ($4.4m) loan to help fund the government’s €30m equity investment in the 205MW Sahofika hydropower project on the Onive River. The loan includes a small grant component and additional funding for the government’s investment is expected from the European Union and the Arab Bank for Economic Development, which are both expected to provide around €13m, with the government providing €1.6m.

The Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy has invited expressions of interest by 22 March from international consultants to provide transaction advisory services for the long-mooted Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower project on the Zambezi River in Tete province. Bids are also sought by 29 March for a project director to coordinate the work of the Mphanda Nkuwa Hydroelectric Project Implementation Office, project consultants and contractors.

The World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (Miga) has issued guarantees for the construction, ownership and operation of the 40MW Aggeneys Solar PV, 75MW Konkoonsies II Solar PV, 117.7MW Golden Valley Wind and 32.5MW Excelsior Wind projects. Miga’s guarantees will cover 90% of developer BioTherm’s equity investment for up to $46.9m in the PV solar plants and $68.9m in both wind production plants.

The incomplete and low-key bulletin announcing the selection of 17 new power plants for South Africa’s renewable energy independent power producer procurement (REIPPP) programme on 29 October demonstrated not only the government’s shifting energy focus, but also conflicts underlying the process itself. Recently appointed minister Dikobe Ben Martins comes with a reputation for implementation, and there is no doubt that the energy sector needs it. With delays at all three of Eskom’s new power plants – which are shut down for a safety inspection following the deaths of six contract workers at Ingula pumped storage plant – and nuclear, gas and cogeneration plans that are behind schedule, Martins’ efforts are likely to be directed away from the REIPPP in the short term.

US government development finance institution the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) has approved $175m for two new investment funds intended to bring renewable energy technologies to markets in Latin America, South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Project developer Energy Systems has started operation of a 3MW landfill gas-to-power project at Robinson Deep landfill site in Johannesburg. The project is South Africa’s first independent landfill GTP scheme and the first stage of a £7.2m ($9m) investment in five landfill gas generation plants in Johannesburg, producing up to 11MW of renewable energy.The project was awarded under the Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement programme. Energy Systems is the majority shareholder in the investment project, together with the state-owned Central Energy Fund and broad-based black economic empowerment company Secure Rock Enterprises.

The impact of coronavirus on construction and project completions was underlined by figures for Q1 2020 produced by African Energy Live Data and presented at a 6 July Africa Investment Exchange (AIX) webinar on Africa power negotiations. This showed that only 240MW of net installed capacity was added in Q1 2020 (as a total of 438MW was installed but several big rental contracts ended). If this performance continued across the year, there would be a historic low in the installation of new generation capacity.

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has won an engineering, procurement and construction contract for the 25.5MW Cabeólica wind project

The Lesotho Electricity Company says that bidding documents will be available in March for a renewable energy grid integration/absorption study backed by the African Development Bank. The study will assess the impact on the transmission and distribution network of renewable energy and establish the degree to which intermittent power can be absorbed by the grid in the medium to long term. Contact: Nts’ito Mahao, Lesotho Electricity Company Ltd, 53 Moshoeshoe Road, Industrial Area, Maseru West, PO Box 423, Maseru 100, Lesotho. Tel: +266 2231 2236; Fax: +266 2231 0093.

Construction of 30 projects totalling 1,365MW and costing more than $2bn will start early next year following the 26 October financial close deadline in the second round of Egypt’s solar feed-in tariff (FiT) programme. All the projects are expected to be commissioned from December 2018 through to June 2019. Together with the three projects that went ahead in the first round, the Benban park will consist of 1,515MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity, connected to the grid via four specially constructed substations.