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In a major investigation, African Energy’s editorial and data teams have probed unanswered questions about South Africa’s energy transition, which is being shaped by large corporations and their need for reliable, low-carbon power. The results show a booming private sector electricity market that is also unpredictable and freighted with risk for all participants.

The future of electric power generation in South Africa is no longer in the hands of state-owned utility Eskom. Although it controls more than 80% of installed capacity, including 45GW of coal-fired generation, changes in the electricity supply industry are now being driven by the installation of many gigawatts-worth of captive solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, following the removal of licence restrictions.

Ghana’s independent power producers (IPPs) are moving closer to a deal with the government over its arrears, as a wider – and long-awaited – multilateral debt restructuring package led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) slowly comes to fruition.

Organisers made big claims about investment flows at the AfDB-backed Africa Investment Forum 2023 Market Days event in Morocco, James Gavin reports from Marrakech.

State-owned Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) is seeking a consultant to conduct a feasibility study on a proposed 40MW floating solar PV plant on the Kamburu hydroelectric power (HEP) plant reservoir.

 Sources say five more turbines are expected to come online at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in the coming months, adding a huge amount of capacity to the grid, even as questions remain over the megaproject’s economic impact and whether the infrastructure exists to increase exports. Meanwhile, Ethiopia faces the prospect of renewed conflict as tensions ratchet up with neighbouring Eritrea, writes Our Ethiopia Correspondent.

Infinity Power has signed a 20-year capacity charge agreement (CCA) with utility Société Nationale d’Electricité du Sénégal (Senelec) for the Taïba N’Diaye battery plant. The storage system will operate in tandem with Infinity’s nearby Taïba N’Diaye wind plant, which was commissioned in February 2020. According to African Energy Live Data, Taïba will be the largest on-grid battery energy storage system in West Africa by some distance.

The utilities of the four-nation Organisation for the Development of the Gambia River (L’Organisation pour la mise en Valeur du Fleuve Gambie, OMVG) have signed a transmission service agreement for the 1,677km ‘Loop’ high-voltage power transmission line. The $685m development comprises 4,000 pylons and 15 substations and interconnects the grids of Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal. As its name suggests, the 225kV, double-circuit line forms a circular network spanning the four countries.

South Africa’s state power utility Eskom has launched the Hex battery energy storage system (Bess) at Worcester in the Western Cape’s Breede Valley, after more than a year of construction work. The facility is the first to be finished under phase one of Eskom’s Bess scheme announced in July 2022.

A group of multinational investors led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have provided finance for the development of the 35MW Kinguélé Aval hydroelectric power plant in Gabon’s Estuaire region.

First discovered in 1974, the offshore Kudu gas field could provide substantial gas-to-power capacity for Namibia’s domestic market and for export to South Africa. Officials say it will proceed independently of recent massive Orange Basin discoveries further south, but industry observers are sceptical of the electricity export plans, citing the lack of transmission infrastructure with South Africa, write Our Namibia Correspondent and Marc Howard.

Construction work has began on the Pomona waste-to-energy project, with a ground-breaking event attended by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The project was approved by cabinet in February 2022, but construction has been delayed by the city council’s failure to raise the required funds and complaints from the public.

Zambian state-owned utility Zesco has signed a system operations agreement with GreenCo Power Services allowing the energy trader to sell power from the Ilute solar PV plant to the Southern African Power Pool (Sapp) market.

The latest financial results issued by South Africa’s state-owned utility Eskom show the dire situation of the country’s electricity supply industry (ESI) is not improving.

State utility Société Nationale de l’Electricité et du Gaz’s Sonelgaz-Energies Renouvelables (S-EnR) has announced the winning bids for its 2GW solar photovoltaic project. Once delivered, the project would quadruple S-EnR’s installed solar capacity. Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune has told Sonelgaz to install 15GW of renewable energy by 2030, of which the 2GW tender is the first phase.