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The Department of Energy released a draft of South Africa’s long-awaited Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) on 27 August, confirming the expected shift away from coal and nuclear power towards renewable energy. The IRP is a crucial document, which sets the installed capacity that can be procured to 2030, effectively forming the legal basis of government policy on the energy mix. The document was approved by cabinet on 22 August.The recommended plan contains no new nuclear power, but also no new renewable power until 2025 and no gas until 2026.

The Agence Française de Développement (AFD), on behalf of the Agence Togolaise d’Electrification Rurale et des Energies Renouvelables, has invited bids by 16 November from consultants to carry out an environmental and social study for a hydropower plant and the rural electrification of Sarakawa in the Kara region of northern Togo.

The inauguration by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his French counterpart Manuel Valls on 23 February of a strategically important electricity interconnection raises the prospect that North African renewable energy producers could eventually supply Western Europe. Despite the Desertec Industrial Initiative’s failure, a number of developers are still planning projects that could export solar power from North Africa to European Union (EU) markets; these include UK-based Tunur, which has plans for concentrated solar power in Tunisia.

The Ministry of Energy has awarded China CAMC Engineering Company a KSh13.6bn ($132m) contract to build a high-voltage power transmission line between Garissa and Isiolo in central Kenya. The project involves constructing a new 285km, 220kV electricity transmission line and three substations. The project is funded through a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China, and work is expected to take two years.

A ground breaking ceremony took place on 6 October for the 100MW Kathu concentrated solar power (CSP) project in the Northern Cape (AE 323/7). The scheme is jointly owned by Engie (48.5%), the Public Investment Corporation on behalf of the Government Employees Pension Fund (17.5%), the SIOC Community Development Trust (12.5%), the Lereko Metier REIPPP Fund Trust (11.5%), Investec Bank Limited (7.5%) and the Kathu LCT Trust (2.5%). Kathu Solar Park was awarded preferred bidder status in round 3.5 round of the renewable energy independent power producer procurement programme and signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Eskom in May 2016.

Berkeley Energy, as manager of the Africa Renewable Energy Fund (AREF), is seeking expressions of interest from consultants to carry out a wind resource assessment for the Makambako wind project. AREF, a $200m fund backed by the African Development Bank to invest in development-stage renewable energy projects, is considering investing in the potential 50MW-100MW wind scheme. The consultant will need to supply a 100-metre lattice tower, with sensors and wind-measuring equipment, transport the equipment to the project site some 650km south-west of Dar es Salaam port, and install it.

EDP Renováveis, the renewable energy arm of Portugal’s state power utility, announced on 23 December that it would invest $3m in decentralised solar system supplier Rensource Energy to support its expansion in Nigeria. The investment, which was the result of a financing initiative in partnership with international investors such as CRE Venture Capital, Omidyar Network, Inspired Evolution, Proparco, I&P, SIN Capital and Yuzuru Honda, will allow EDP Renováveis to participate in Africa’s largest market.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf officially inaugurated a 10MW heavy fuel oil (HFO) plant on 13 September at the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) compound on Bushrod Island outside Monrovia. The $27m project was funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Finance for the construction of facilities for offloading, transport and storage of HFO was provided by the World Bank through its $35m Accelerated Electricity Expansion Project. Sirleaf switched on the lights in the Snow Hill community in Monrovia’s Gardnerville district and said the restored Mount Coffee hydro plant would start to come on line in December 2016.

Tropical Power Energy Group has built and commissioned what it says is Africa’s first grid connected biogas facility fed by gas from an anaerobic digestor plant. The Gorge Farm facility has installed capacity of 2.2MW which it will supply to the grid by March 2015 – subject to ratification of the power purchase agreement by the Energy Regulatory Commission – and to the farm. The project is owned and managed by developer Biojoule Kenya. The plant uses crop waste to feed a two-stage anaerobic digester which uses microorganisms to feed on the waste and produce biogas to feed gas turbines.

Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) has invited expressions of interest by 20 June from consultants for engineering, procurement and construction contract management services for the 2,200MW Koysha hydroelectric project on the Omo River. The scope of work includes engineering services for the project throughout the 63-month contract period and 12-month defect liability period, working with the client’s project office.

The 69 local and international participants in Tunisia’s first tender for solar independent power projects will learn which bids have been successful by year-end. Minister of energy, mines and renewable energy Khaled Kaddour, who was appointed in September to replace Hela Cheikhrouhou, told delegates at the BGS Solar Summit in Tunis on 20 November that the results would be announced in one month, describing it as “a first experience for Tunisia following the introduction of the new regulatory framework governing this area”.

Office National de l’Electricité (ONE) announced on 10 December that it had received expressions of interest from 26 companies and consortia in response to a tender launched in late October to build the 150MW Taza wind farm.

Speaking in Brussels on 2 February, the minister said a planned phase 2 expansion of the Moanda metallurgy complex by the Compagnie Minière de l’Ogooué (Comilog) was dependent on power availability and would require at least 80MW. Similarly, Nouvelle Gabon Mining, owned by Singapore-based investors, which is developing the Franceville manganese deposits and planning a manganese alloy plant, needs 70MW for phase one of the project and 80MW for the second phase. Existing generation capacity is not sufficient to supply these projects, let alone the future Belinga iron ore project, whose total reserves are estimated at 1bn tonnes.

Agence Française de Développement (AFD) has boosted Kenya’s efforts to exploit its geothermal resources with $169.2m of funding.

The Togolese Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Agency (AT2ER) invites prequalification bids by 28 November for the development, co-financing, construction, operation and maintenance of solar PV-based mini-grids and distribution in 317 localities across the country, as well as the distribution and marketing of electricity to customers. The contracted works, which are being co-financed by the West African Development Bank and the Energy Development Fund, are divided into five lots, to be carried out in three phases.