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Zambian energy minister Christopher Yaluma is hoping construction work will start on the 1,600MW Batoka Gorge hydro project by year-end. Developers are showing strong interest in the project on the Zambezi River downstream from Victoria Falls, whose development will be carried out by a special purpose vehicle to be formed by the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), which was established to operate and maintain the Kariba Dam. Yaluma said that, since Zambia and Zimbabwe had revived the Batoka project, it had attracted an “unprecedented number of unsolicited expressions of interest”.

A consortium of Turkish construction and engineering groups Ozgun and Ozdemir has won an international tender held by the Taoussa Development Authority on behalf of the Ministry of Energy and Water for the construction of the Taoussa dam and an associated 25MW hydropower plant on the Niger River in north-eastern Mali. The consortium submitted a winning bid of $172.5m, comprising $152.8m for the civil works and $19.7m for the supply and installation of the electro-mechanical equipment, according to a ministry announcement on 25 June.

The cabinet has approved a draft treaty between South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the development of the Grand Inga hydro project. The draft was drawn up by a technical committee of officials from the two countries following the signing of a memorandum of understanding by their presidents in November.

The government is advancing rapidly with its plan to build more than 4GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation in partnership with foreign investors. At a well-attended presentation in Algiers on 1 March, Sonelgaz released a surprising amount of detail about its intentions. Minster of energy Noureddine Bouterfa first announced the 4,050MW programme in mid-January (AE 340/4). The dissemination of a detailed plan just over one month later is unusually rapid by Algerian standards.

Following international competitive bidding, Eco Delta has won a concession to install a 25.2MWe wind farm at a site close to the capital, Lomé. It has created a local venture, Delta Wind Togo SA-CA, in which the French renewables developer has taken 85% of the equity and a local partner the rest.

Zesco has announced a deal with Power China to add 600MW of solar power to its grid in 2022.The Chinese contractor will build three solar PV projects in Chibombo, Chirundu and Siavonga districts on an engineering, procurement and construction plus finance basis. The debt required for the project is around $548m. Power China is the parent company of Sinohydro, which already accounts for 67% of Zesco’s debt. The Power China projects appear aimed to replace the second round of Scaling Solar, through which Zambia had intended to procure 600MW.

The 420MW Nachtigal hydroelectric power project took a significant step forward on 8 November with the signing of financing agreements. Nachtigal is one of the largest non-Chinese projects to be developed as an independent power producer (IPP) or public-private partnership in sub-Saharan Africa by transaction size, as all the Nigerian IPPs were developed by the state. The transaction was nearly 50% bigger than Nigeria’s landmark Azura-Edo scheme.

Madagascar followed in the footsteps of Zambia and Senegal on 21 March, when the government signed an agreement with the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) to design and tender a partnership under the Scaling Solar initiative to develop privately owned grid connected solar power. The IFC said that “a large and sustainable 30-40MW solar facility will help ease daily interruptions of power service”. National utility Jirama relies predominantly on diesel engines for its generation, making electricity provision costly.

The World Bank Group (WBG) has begun procuring services for the first phase of its Scaling Solar programme in Niger, while the Ministry of Energy is seeking consultants to design green mini-grids. Scaling Solar aims to create the conditions for solar power development in countries with little or no experience of the technology. Niger is not formally engaged with the programme, but the WBG has initiated the first due diligence and transaction structuring phase.

BioTherm Energy, a portfolio company of private equity firm Denham Capital, on 25 July reached financial close at four wind and solar projects selected in the fourth round of South Africa’s renewable energy independent power producer programme (REIPPP) in 2015. The projects signed government-backed 20-year power purchase agreements with national utility Eskom in April after years of delay. Until government intervention forced a change in policy, the utility had refused to sign agreements with any project selected through the programme, claiming they would cause further harm to its desperate financial situation.

Nasdaq-listed Chinese solar manufacturer JA Solar announced on 22 February that it had signed an agreement to be the module supplier for the 75MW Orange Solar project in Loeriesfontein, Northern Cape Province, alongside local partners Solar Capital Ltd and Black Enterprise Empowerment. The contract will begin in 2017 when construction of the project is expected to start; work has been delayed by an Eskom grid constraint, according to Solar Capital. The project will connect to a new 22/132kV switching station at Narosies, adjacent to the project, which Eskom will connect via a 6km line to Helios substation where a new 132kV feeder bay will be built.

Tenders are set to be launched for the rehabilitation of the Kainji and Jebba hydropower plants on the Niger River after the concessionaire, Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited, approved a capacity recovery plan prepared by RusHydro International. RusHydro confirmed to African Energy on 4 September that the Mainstream board had approved the plan in August and that the next step for the Russian engineering group would be to help the concession-holder to prepare tender documentation and start procurement for equipment, civil works and assembly services.

eleQtra (Moçambique) Limitada has selected WorleyParsons Group to conduct a feasibility study to assess the viability of a 120MW wind power plant to be developed in two phases of 60MW each in the Namaacha district in southern Mozambique. The study is funded with a grant from the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).

Progress has been reported at last in bidding to build the first phase of Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen)’s planned 500MW solar power plant at Ouarzazate (AE 201/10, 196/6, 174/8). 

Construction is due to start by year-end on a $38m project to add a solar PV-battery system to the existing power plant at B2Gold Corporation’s Fekola gold mine. Germany’s Suntrace GmbH and BayWa r.e. GmbH completed a preliminary study earlier this year and are providing technical support to the project, which is due for completion in August 2020.