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The African Development Bank announced on 20 December that its board had approved a $50m senior loan to Azito Energie for the 139MW expansion of the Azito gas-fired power plant. The loan will contribute to financing the Azito Phase III project.

Export-Import Bank of China has signed a $500m soft loan agreement with the government to finance construction of the long-mooted 275MW Soubré hydropower project. Chinese ambassador Zhang Guoqing told reporters the loan was the biggest agreed between China and Côte d’Ivoire in over 30 years.

Egypt’s end-2012 power crisis was caused by a chronic lack of gas, which has led the government to embark on what appears to be an illogical plan to become a gas importer. But while it is politically, financially and logistically difficult to implement, the plan effectively means that market pricing for gas will be introduced into Egypt for the first time.

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) announced in December that it would be joining the consortium developing the 100MW Singida wind project. The IFC will take a 20% stake in project company Wind East Africa alongside Aldwych International (40%) and Tanzania’s Six Telecoms (40%). The investment is being made through IFC InfraVentures, which deals with constraints to private investment in infrastructure.

General Electricity Company of Libya (Gecol) signed a flurry of supply deals in late 2012 in an attempt to get generation capacity back to a level sufficient to deal with expected peaks of demand during this winter and next summer. However industry observers expect frequent blackouts to continue as the sector struggles to overcome the legacy of inaction during the anti-Qadhafi revolution and its aftermath.

Eskom has given Alstom a contract worth €110m ($147m) to retrofit the low-pressure steam turbines in its Kriel coal-fired power station. The retrofit on the six 500MW units covers the supply, installation, testing and commissioning of 12 low-pressure turbine inner modules and the supply of two spare low-pressure rotors.

The African Development Bank and the government of Central African Republic signed an agreement on 17 December for a CFA23bn ($47m) grant to finance a project to interconnect the power networks of CAR and Democratic Republic of Congo via the Boali hydro scheme.

Zimbabwe’s State Procurement Board (SPB) has finally awarded the tender for the 300MW Kariba South Power Station extension to Sinohydro, the Zimbabwe Herald reported. The daily paper said the Chinese company had bid about $368m for the contract, which was just over half of the $700m agreed with the Treasury in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in 2010.

Securing early-stage project development financing is a major hurdle to getting renewable projects off the ground in many African countries, and a new facility aims to address this. On 4 December, the UK Department for International Development (DfID) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change approved the Green Africa Power (GAP) fund, a new facility housed under the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) umbrella.

Cenpower Generation Company Limited executed a government consent and support agreement with the government of Ghana on 19 November for the development of the 340MW Kpone independent power project.

Germany’s SMA Solar Technology AG declared on 4 December that its new sales and service companies in South Africa and Chile had begun operations.

The World Bank is set to provide $60m additional financing to the Electricity Access Scale-up project in Rwanda. The final decision will be made by the board on 11 January 2013. The original $80m project has played an important part in increasing the rate of electrification from 28,000 connections in 2008 to 100,000 in 2012.

Office National d'Electricité et de l’Eau Potable has released the 2013 procurement plan for the Integrated Wind and Rural Electrification project. Three tenders worth an estimated combined total of €222m ($290m) will be sought during the year.

Economic recovery has given a new impetus to the long-mooted Batoka Gorge hydro project on the Zambezi River, writes Chiwoyu Sinyangwe in Lusaka

President Mwai Kibaki officially commissioned the 115MW Kipevu III thermal power plant in Mombasa on 4 December. Construction of the plant was funded via a through a local infrastructure bond floated by the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) in 2009.