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Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) acting managing director Joshua Chirikutsi has expressed concern over progress at a 100MW solar PV project near Gwanda. The utility made a controversial $5.6m early payment earlier this year for the project, which is being developed by Intratrek Zimbabwe and China’s Chint Electric. Local media report that Chirikutsi told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy that, “so far from the works done [Intratrek managing director Wicknell Chivayo] cannot account for $1.8m. We are really worried”.

A World Heritage Committee meeting in Manama decided on 28 June to inscribe the Lake Turkana National Parks on the List of World Heritage in Danger, citing the impact of Ethiopia’s Gibe III dam on the site.The committee expressed concern about the changes affecting the hydrology of the Lake Turkana Basin, notably the disruptive effect of Gibe III on the flow and ecosystem of Lake Turkana, and Ethiopia’s huge Kuraz Sugar Development Project, which will include a significant irrigation element posing a further threat to water flows.

Construction of the 80MW Rusumo Falls hydroelectric project in Rwanda is under way following an official groundbreaking ceremony held on 30 March. The run-of-river project on the Kagera River along Rwanda’s border with Tanzania, just downstream of the tripoint where the two countries share a common border with Burundi, is scheduled to be commissioned in 2020, with output to be shared equally between the countries.

The government and the state Electricity Development Corporation have signed a contract with China International Water and Electric Corporation (CWE) for construction of the Lom Pangar dam to regulate the flow of the Sanaga River.

Power adviser at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and former Central Electricity Authority executive Chandra Prakash has confirmed his government’s commitment to completing the 64MW Katende hydro project during a visit to the project site from 19 to 22 September.Prakash reassured his hosts that Indian parastatal National Projects Construction Corporation (NPCC) would complete the Katende dam on the Lulua River in Kasai Central province and the smaller 10.5 MW Kakobola dam on the Lukufu River in Kwilu province.

The Guinean government is assessing an offer from Sinohydro Corporation and China International Water and Electric Corporation to build the long-awaited Kaléta hydropower project on the Konkouré River, energy and environment minister Papa Koly Korouma said in Paris on 14 June.

France’s Eranove is to design, finance, build and operate two hydropower plants totalling nearly 90MW under 30-year concessions signed with state investment fund Fonds Gabonais d’Investissements Stratégiques (FGIS). Under the agreements signed on 21 October but announced in November, the West African-focused power and water utility is to develop the Ngoulmendjim storage plant with an installed capacity of 73MW and estimated average output of 500GWh/yr on the Komo River, about 125km east of Libreville, and the 15MW Dibwangui facility on the Louetsi River in the south-eastern Ngounié region. The smaller plant is expected to produce around 90GWh/yr.

Implementation of the wind farm contract awarded by Office National de l’Electricité (ONE) to France’s EDF Energies Nouvelles and Japan’s Mitsui group is dragging, as details remain to be finalised of a project that sources say is technically challenging.

The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development has signed an agreement to provide a $27m loan to develop the Gale-Le-Koma geothermal project in the Lake Assal region. The project involves the drilling of ten wells (eight production boreholes and two reinjection boreholes) and development of a 15MW geothermal power plant, with a target completion date of 2021.The agreement was signed with the Office Djiboutien de Développement de l’Energie Géothermique (ODDEG), which has carried out preliminary drilling and confirmed a geothermal reservoir at the site.

State utility Regie de Distribution et de Production de l’Eau et de l’Electricité has applied to the European Investment Bank (EIB) for financing for two run-of-river hydropower plants with a combined installed capacity of 48MW in the south of the country. The EIB said on 4 June that it was considering a loan of about €70m for construction of the 31.5MW Jiji and 16.5MW Mulembwe plants as well as an 80km 110kV transmission line to Bujumbura, to deliver power to the national grid.

As Eskom’s problems mount, there is growing concern about the increasingly serious cost implications of connecting renewable energy (RE) power plants to the grid. Connecting projects which are widely geographically dispersed to the grid poses a sizeable challenge. It is starting to become clear that Eskom did not adequately account for the grid needs of RE projects in its transmission plans, and that the cost of evacuating power from RE schemes has not so far been factored into the bid process, particularly given that, in South Africa, the arreas with the highest solar isolation have the weakest grids.

Ministry of Energy and Petroleum principal secretary and former Kenya Power managing director Joseph Njoroge has suggested that the government may not be willing to pay for power from the 310MW Lake Turkana wind power project if the transmission line is not ready. The question of paying for power from the plant was always going to test the government’s resolve once it became clear that the line would not be finished in time because of issues securing land rights.

The 50MW Singida wind power project is to receive a non-concessional $123m loan from the Export-Import Bank of China, and should be producing power by next year.

The Department of Energy has released the draft Integrated Energy Planning (IEP) report for public consultation “as part of a process to formulate an integrated energy plan, which will outline a recommended energy roadmap for South Africa and guide investment decisions”. A period of public discussion will follow, as different stakeholder groups try to hammer out consensus on a sustainable long-term trajectory for the country (the IEP looks towards 2050). The IEP – with the expected new Integrated Resource Plan – will encompass Eskom’s plans for more coal-fired capacity, and also consolidate the so far successful effort to install major renewables capacity; it should also push forward the debate over new gas and nuclear infrastructure.

The European Investment Bank has agreed to provide E23m ($31m) of financing for the 30MW Zagtouli solar photovoltaic scheme. The 20-year loan to the total E70.5m project being developed by Sonabel on the outskirts of Ouagadougou is in addition to E25m of funding from the European Union and support from the Agence Française de Développement.