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Zimbabwe is highly unlikely to eradicate the crony capitalist structures that have favoured the Mugabe clan and other Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) grandees any time soon. But the president’s departure could favour a measured transition, building on initiatives to normalise the economy undertaken by regime officials such as Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya and Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) managing director Noah Fari Gwariro. Even at 92 years old, it seems imprudent to write off President Robert Mugabe, whose ruthless political cunning has seen off international sanctions and domestic challenges.

The government has revived controversial plans for the 2,100MW Stiegler’s Gorge dam in the Selous Game Reserve, despite environmentalists’ concerns about the potential impact on the World Heritage site. Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn visited Tanzania in March and agreed to send a team of experts to advise on the project, planned for the Stiegler’s Gorge canyon on the Rufiji River in southern Tanzania. A delegation led by Ethiopian minister of water, irrigation and electricity Sileshi Bekele arrived at the end of June to meet Tanzanian officials.

Société Nationale d’Electricité du Burkina has again extended the deadline for bids for the turnkey construction of two solar photovoltaic (PV) projects totalling 30MW to 20 May. The previous deadlines were 29 April, and 28 February. Bids are sought for the construction of a 20MW plant near Koudougou in Boulkiemdé province in the Centre-Ouest region (lot 1) and a 10MW facility in the city of Kaya, the capital of the province of Sanmatenga in the Centre-Nord region (lot 2), as well as their connection to the national grid.

Two consortia have been selected to build, own and operate two solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants with a total capacity of 20MW, under the pilot Global Energy Transfer Feed-in Tariffs (GET FiT) programme (AE 289/8). Uganda’s Simba Telecom in partnership with Italy’s Building Energy and a consortium of Access Power MEA of the United Arab Emirates and Spain’s TSK Electronica will build the country’s first solar projects in the Tororo and Soroti districts in eastern Uganda, at a combined cost of $32.5m, the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) announced on 10 December.

Germany’s KfW has agreed to extend a €25m grant to the Ministry of Economics and Finance for the Global Energy Transfer Feed-in-Tariff (Get FiT) programme in Mozambique. The programme will promote private sector investment in solar PV systems including battery storage of up to 32MW, KfW announced on 4 September. The project will support government efforts to supply the entire population with electricity by 2030. At present, only just under one third of Mozambicans have access to electricity.

Ireland’s Mainstream Renewable Power announced an agreement on 15 September to purchase the 225MW Ayitepa wind farm project from Swiss developer NEK Umwelttechnik. Mainstream said the project was in the latter stages of development with all major permits secured. Grid and offtake agreements are being finalised, and the $525m scheme is expected to reach financial close in 2015 and start generating power early in 2016, according to Mainstream. The government has described the scheme as a major contribution to Ghana’s target of raising green energy production to 500MW by 2020 from 2.5MW now, but there are concerns about the capacity of the grid to transmit the power.

As the pace of new projects finally starts to pick up, administrative delays at the Department of Energy mean the deadline for renewable energy bidders to reach financial close has been moved back, writes Dan Marks

Desertec is an ambitious project to bring solar electricity generated in the Middle East/North Africa (Mena) region to Europe by harnessing desert sunshine captured by concentrating

Australia’s AVZ Minerals is to study the feasibility of refurbishing the Piana-Mwanga hydropower plant and associated grids to supply its planned lithium and tin mining operations. AVZ Minerals said on 15 January that its subsidiary AVZ Power had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy to examine the viability of re-commissioning the plant, which was built in 1933 to service the historic tin mine but closed in 1982 when operations ceased.

A consortium of Belgium’s Besix, France’s NGE and Morocco’s Société Générale des Travaux du Maroc has won a contract from Nachtigal Hydro Power Company (NHPC) to design and build the 420MW Nachtigal dam on the Sanaga River. Besix said the contract involved designing and building a dam up to 2km long and 14 metres high in roller-compacted concrete, and a 3km supply canal, as well as civil engineering works for the hydroelectric power plant with seven 60MW turbines and water intake facilities.

The government of Equatorial Guinea has received a CFA80bn ($138m) loan from the Development Bank of Central African States (BDEAC) to complete construction of the 200MW Sendje hydropower project. The project on the Wele River, about 40km east of the port city of Bata, is being carried out by the Ukrainian contractor Duglas Alliance under a turnkey contract at a total cost of more than CFA306bn.

AMEA Power chairman Hussain Nowais on 1 February signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop a 120MW solar project in Chad. The plan is for a turnkey project to be delivered in October 2020. The agreement was signed with petroleum and energy minister Mahamat Hamid Koua, a former deputy secretary-general of the government and trade minister who was appointed the previous day. Koua replaced Aziza Mariam El-Bashir, former deputy director-general of Société des Hydrocarbures du Tchad, who was appointed on 21 January and sacked ten days later.

Developer Mainstream Renewable Power has signed a $117.5m equity investment from investors including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the IFC African, Latin American and Caribbean Fund and the IFC Catalyst Fund, two funds managed by IFC Asset Management Company, Ascension Investment Management and Sanlam, to develop wind and solar plants across Africa.

The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has given Sri Lankan firm VS Hydro a contract to construct a 5MW hydropower plant for four factories on the Gura River in Nyeri, central Kenya at a cost of Ksh1.3bn ($15m).

New York Stock Exchange-listed Ormat Technologies on 2 May began commercial operations at the 36MW plant II at the Olkaria III geothermal power project in Kenya. Commissioning of the unit takes the capacity of the facility to 84MW; the first two phases of the project were completed in 2000 and 2009.