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The award for the prospective wind and battery energy storage plant in Mzuzu could see Malawi finally start to make use of its excellent wind resource. 

The agreement with Ethiopian Electric Power marks further progress for the $620m Aysha plant, which will be the largest wind power facility in the Horn of Africa.

Africa-focused renewable developer Amea Power has announced significant milestones for two projects. The Dubai-headquartered firm has started construction work on a 24MWp PV plant in Uganda and signed a deal to add a further 30MWp of PV and 10MWh of storage to its already-operating 70MWp/5MWh Togolese plant.

Utility LEC has signed a deal to progress Liberia’s first solar PV plant and expects to expand capacity at its operational Mount Coffee hydro namesake by 50%. Another 150-200MW of hydro and a separate 16.5MWp solar PV plant are also under negotiation or have studies underway, pointing to what could be Liberia’s largest ever increase in on-grid capacity, writes Marc Howard.

Plans to add over 500MW of solar PV capacity by 2028 would go some way towards balancing Mali’s energy mix. Pricey and polluting liquid fuel-fired capacity remains by far the dominant source of generation, but funding from the World Bank Group and a new 200MWp solar project backed by Moscow would add substantial renewable capacity, writes Marc Howard.

Solar PV solar and battery capacity has already taken an important share of Mali’s off-grid commercial and industrial (C&I) generation market. The installation of these systems is likely to go further despite the inherent risks in the market.

Russian sponsorship of Mali’s largest under-development solar PV plant has raised eyebrows in the industry. It represents an unusual departure for Rosatom and depends on the warm ties between Colonel Assimi Goïta’s regime and Moscow.

President Emmanuel Macron’s intervention on the Western Sahara question adds another level of complication and irritation to international relations in north-west Africa. His motive in spelling out support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for the territory in a letter to King Mohammed VI, which he must have known would be immediately leaked to the media, is hard to explain. It puts major French business interests in Algeria in peril and will aggravate regional tensions. All sides will have to work hard to avoid an accidental escalation.

A 600,000 t/yr iron and carbon steel plant built by Chinese steel giant Tsingshan Holdings has started production at Manhize near Mvuma, breathing life into Zimbabwe’s moribund steel industry and positioning the country as a major iron and steel exporter.

Another round of energy sector appointments has been made by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s administration, part of what some Senegalese observers have called the ‘de-Mackyisation’ of the energy sector. The new recruits largely comprise technocrats, external experts, and academics.

Norway’s Scatec is selling a majority stake of its hydroelectric power joint venture with Norfund and British International Investment, which is involved in projects in Uganda, Malawi, and a trilateral Great Lakes development.

Despite the enormous need for investment in new transmission and distribution capacity and rehabilitating existing infrastructure, there is precious little private sector involvement in African utilities. The old model of state-dominated, vertically-integrated utilities has conspicuously failed to expand access or lower costs, yet it continues to exercise a hold over governments, writes Marc Howard.

 Zambia’s National Pension Scheme Authority is to provide half of the $400m cost of adding 300MW of generating capacity to the MCL coal-fired plant in Sinazongwe, after international investors steered clear of the project, writes Chiwoyu Sinyangwe in Lusaka.

The imminent return of Casablanca-based power and water utility Lydec to public ownership marks an important step in what has been a drawn-out process, but major hurdles remain before the government’s new electricity distribution structure is firmly in place, write John Hamilton and our Casablanca correspondent.

Johannesburg-based real estate investor Vukile Property Fund plans to increase its power generating capacity from rooftop solar PV to 41MWp by 2026, as part of a strategy to invest in alternative and cheaper electricity to supplement unreliable grid supplies to its shopping malls.