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Tensions in implementing an $8.5bn package agreed at COP26 in November to help South Africa decarbonise its power sector illustrate many of the problems around climate change and finance in emerging countries.  

The Opec Fund for International Development (Ofid) is expanding its Energy Compact partnership with Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) to accelerate access to clean cooking, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. 

One of the most ambitious claims to emerge from COP26 was that substantial public financing commitments from wealthy nations would unlock a much larger amount of international and domestic private finance. But numbers reviewed by African Energy reveal that there is a staggeringly large finance gap to bridge in Africa.

Arguments are intensifying over climate justice, the very meaning of climate finance, the role of gas as a transition fuel and – most of all – money. The combination of which means a ‘just energy transition’ that enables African nations to meet economic development targets seems a long way off.

Amea Power’s memorandum of understanding with a strategic group of Egyptian state entities places the UAE-based power developer among a small but growing number of investors contributing to building a green hydrogen hub at the southern entrance of the Suez Canal

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).

The German-backed Nitric Acid Climate Action Group (Nacag) is financing fertiliser manufacturer Sable Chemicals project to design, install and commission nitrous oxide (N20) abatement technology and emissions monitoring equipment at its plants in Kwekwe, central Zimbabwe. Sable has launched a tender with a bid deadline on 14 June.

A High Court ruling left critical questions unanswered over the UK government’s proposed $1.15bn funding for the Area 1 liquefied natural gas scheme in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. The Court of Appeal will now be asked to decide on what could provide an important legal precedent for export credit financing, writes James Gavin

London AIM-listed Savannah Energy has joined the trend for independent oil companies (IOCs) to follow their larger peers’ move into renewable energy (RE), with the signing of a memorandum of understanding for a 250MW wind project in Niger. It is understood the project that will emerge is likely to be much smaller than the announced amount.

Washington-based social impact project developer C-Quest Capital (CQC) has secured significant new finance for its deployment of clean cooking stoves in sub-Saharan Africa, in the latest sign of growing interest in the sector.

Less than three weeks after Norway’s Scatec signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop an export-focused green hydrogen and green ammonia production facility in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk has signed an MoU with exactly the same team of key institutions to explore the establishment of large-scale green fuel production in the zone

A 22 March agreement between the government and a joint venture called Koko Rwanda – majority owned by Koko Networks alongside consulting company and co-developer Dalberg – will see Rwanda waive VAT and import duties on equipment and ethanol while Koko Rwanda invests $25m developing a nationwide bioethanol cooking fuel network.

Off-grid energy company Bboxx is launching a cheaper product range to target poorer customers, amid a fall in incomes across Africa for the first time in a decade and supply chain issues with China.

Frequently treated as an afterthought to electrification, clean cooking equipment suppliers have quietly been making inroads on the back of deepening supply chains, technological innovation and maturing business models, writes Dan Marks.

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.