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The African Development Bank (AfDB) and its partners are planning to create what they call the world’s largest mini-grid market in Nigeria, using the new Leveraging Energy Access Finance (Leaf) financing model to support the Rural Electrification Agency (REA)’s Nigeria Electrification Programme (NEP).

Andritz's refurbishment of the Mwadingusha hydroelectric power (HEP) plant in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s Katanga province shows the potential for mobilising anchor mining clients to deliver wider power supply in DRC’s under-performing electricity supply industry. In this case the backers were Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines and China’s Zijin Mining Group who own Africa’s largest copper plant, the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project joint venture in Lualaba province. 

Tronox Holdings is the latest energy-intensive company to make use of regulatory changes opening the electricity market in South Africa to more producers and consumers. The titanium dioxide producer has signed a power purchase agreement with Sola Group for 200MW of solar PV capacity.

South African state-owned Central Energy Fund has signed a non-binding term sheet to acquire a 10% stake in Renergen’s Victoria gas project for R1bn ($68m)

The amount of electricity that households and industrial customers can feed into Zimbabwe’s national grid through net metering has been increased from 100kW to 5MW, following the gazetting on 11 March of amendments to the Electricity (Net Metering) Regulations of 2018.

South African Breweries (SAB) has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with local waste-to-energy developer Bio2Watt for its 4.8MW Cape Dairy biogas plant.

France’s Total Eren and AIM-listed Chariot have signed an agreement to develop 430MW of solar and wind power to supply First Quantum Minerals (FQM)’s mines in Zambia.

Sedibelo Platinum Mines (SPM) is negotiating a 75MW renewable energy (RE) programme for its mines, which includes securing 40MW of solar and wind power from sites in Limpopo and Western Cape via a wheeling arrangement.

Norway’s Scatec ASA now has a choice of green hydrogen (GH2) projects in Egypt. Just months after signing pioneering agreement with fertilizer producer Fertiglobe, Scatec has signed up for a multi-gigawatt export-driven scheme in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, alongside The Sovereign Fund of Egypt, Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) and New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA). Abu Qir Fertilizers and Chemical Industries – now run by former Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) chairman Abed Ezz El Regal – is also studying a GH2 and ammonia project.

Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines has made a strategic investment in Johannesburg Stock Exchange- and A2X-listed Renergen, in a deal that gives the Canadian firm an option to negotiate power supply from Renergen’s planned gas power plant in South Africa.

Generation companies will be able to start supplying electricity directly to large customers through the national network, under regulation guidelines which the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) has drafted and is due to publish in the near future.

Investec Property has announced plans for a 5.25MW rooftop solar PV project in Corbunia Mall, Durban, which it has dubbed the continent’s largest rooftop solar project.

State-owned Development Bank of Namibia has signed an agreement to fund construction of the Rosh Pinah Solar Park that will supply 5.4MW for zinc and lead miner Rosh Pinah Zinc Corporation in south-western Namibia.

Announcements of big funding commitments and project completions in the last three months point to the commercial and industrial market continuing to grow at a rapid pace, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa’s larger economies.

Nairobi-based Camco Clean Energy’s new specialised finance company Spark Energy Services is looking to fund solar PV and wind plants, plus energy efficiency initiatives for commercial and industrial (C&I) developers. Spark’s ‘impact-led’ approach intends to enable local developers in sub-Saharan markets to build scale and their balance sheets, in turn creating sustainable C&I businesses