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Lagos-headquartered Royal Power Energy (RPE) is planning to expand out of its home market and into Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as it seeks to exploit opportunities stemming from the rising demand for electricity from mobile phone network providers.

First Quantum Minerals (FQM) is hoping to complete 430MW of solar and wind projects in time for the commissioning of a $1.25bn expansion at its Kansanshi mine in Solwezi, North Western province, a company executive told African Energy.

Lagos-headquartered Rensource plans to launch a Series B funding round in the near future, aiming to raise $12m by end-year, which it will use to advance its 70MW commercial and industrial project pipeline, chief executive Prince Ojeabulu told African Energy.

US player West Africa LNG has a $300m deal to build a liquefied natural gas import and distribution terminal to supply gas to power-hungry miners and to-be-developed alumina processing facilities in a country where previous efforts to expand the grid have faltered and significant additional generation capacity will be required to develop alumina processing at scale. Chaired by a former US ambassador to Guinea, WALNG has yet to expand on financing and other critical details.

Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) has acquired a stake in Ubiquity Energy, owner of electricity trading platform Energy Exchange of Southern Africa.

Rabat has pushed ahead with legal reforms that could open up the electricity supply industry and encourage more self-generation, but observers fear the entrenched interests of state utility Onee and regional utilities will continue to delay meaningful change, writes John Hamilton.

While imposing macroeconomic problems continue to weigh on developers, Zimbabwe is seeking ways to attract investment to independent power producers and commercial and industrial (C&I) projects. And among recent schemes to overcome being ostracised by international capital markets Zimbabwe is looking to use its wealthier C&I power consumers to provide corporate guarantees to raise capital for new projects.

Goma-based renewables developer Nuru has raised $1.5m from Nairobi-headquartered investor E3 Capital, the United Kingdom’s Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) and Agence Française de Développement subsidiary Proparco.

Madrid-headquartered Ric Energy has completed a 1.4MWp/4.5MWh solar PV mini-grid in Mzuzu in Malawi's Northern Region.

Early years electricity demand at the Magnis Energy Technologies group’s Nachu graphite production plant will be around 24MW, with mining and processing operations expected require some 135,000 MWh/yr.

Bamako-headquartered SolarX said on 1 March it had signed 15-year deals with Orange Côte d’Ivoire to install approximately 1MWp of aggregated solar PV capacity at two of its data centres, in Yamoussoukro in Côte d’Ivoire (CdI) and Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. African Energy spoke to SolarX chief executive Karim Ghammache.

Construction is under way on the first phase of a solar PV plant at Zimplats’ Selous Metallurgical Complex.

Outgoing Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter has argued for increased support to exploit the potential for rooftop PV, other C&I power and solar home systems to help South Africa overcome its chronic electricity supply deficit. De Ruyter said up to 10GW of rooftop solar could be added by 2030 – but that depends on investors getting more incentives in a sector where government has previously been of limited support.

Sasol has signed a series of power purchase agreements – two of them in partnership with France’s Air Liquide – which will in total deliver 289MW of wind power for its Secunda and Sasolburg sites, as part of plans by the energy and chemicals company to ramp up its use of renewable energy.

Solar PV plants supplying São Tomé International Airport and Príncipe Airport are expected to enter commercial operations later this year, Portuguese project developer Cleanwatts told African Energy Live Data in mid-January.