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Tribal rights NGO Survival International has lodged a complaint with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) against Italian company Salini Impregilo, which is building the 1,870MW Gilgel Gibe III dam on the Omo River in Ethiopia. The complaint was filed under the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, to which Salini is a signatory.

A variety of reasons were given for the complete loss of power to the grid of Africa’s biggest economy on 31 March. The most immediate cause appears to have been the tripping of the 330kV transmission lines from Osogbo to Ihovbor and Ihovbor to Benin, resulting in the loss of 201MW from the Ihovbor gas power plant in Delta State. Without adequate reserves to support the system, the resulting drop in frequency caused a complete collapse. Generation had already fallen precipitously from a record high of 5,074MW on 2 February in the wake of a sophisticated underwater attack on the pipeline feeding the Forcados export terminal operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited.

The board of the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) has approved the construction of a 50MW solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Garissa. The plant is expected to cost Ksh12.8bn ($127m), financed by the Chinese government, and will comprise 210,210 260W panels. Construction is expected to begin in July and will take one year to complete. In 2012, Chinese manufacturer JinkoSolar Holdings announced that it had signed a deal with China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic & Technical Cooperation Ltd to supply PV modules for the project.

Zimbabwe is highly unlikely to eradicate the crony capitalist structures that have favoured the Mugabe clan and other Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) grandees any time soon. But the president’s departure could favour a measured transition, building on initiatives to normalise the economy undertaken by regime officials such as Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya and Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) managing director Noah Fari Gwariro. Even at 92 years old, it seems imprudent to write off President Robert Mugabe, whose ruthless political cunning has seen off international sanctions and domestic challenges.

The board of the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) has approved the construction of a 50MW solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Garissa. The plant is expected to cost Ksh12.8bn ($127m), financed by the Chinese government, and will comprise 210,210 260W panels. Construction is expected to begin in July and will take one year to complete. In 2012, Chinese manufacturer JinkoSolar Holdings announced that it had signed a deal with China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic & Technical Cooperation Ltd to supply PV modules for the project.

Morocco’s ambitious opening to renewables continues apace, with projects for wind and solar to supply private industry, as well as the Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) grid. In a potentially important agreement, leading local developer Nareva Holding – part of the SNI group, which has a major royal shareholding – will supply power generated by a wind farm to Nador-based steelmaker Sonasid from 2018.

Construction officially got under way on 17 March at the $19m 10MW Soroti solar photovoltaic (PV) project in eastern Uganda. The project was selected through the Global Energy Transfer Feed-in Tariffs (GET FiT) scheme in December 2014, bidding a tariff of 16.38c/kWh over the course of the 20-year power purchase agreement. Commercial operations are expected in July.

Ambiguous signals from South Africa are adding to concerns that, for all the political support and its central position in the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (Pida), the Grand Inga project’s anchor client is less than certain the scheme will go ahead in its current configuration. Critics point to daunting downside risks, including heavy costs, the supply-side impact of rival schemes (including mega-projects led by the new-build nuclear programme and plans to pipe more gas from Mozambique) and heightened perceptions of political risk in the run-up to presidential elections in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which are scheduled for November.

Siemens has signed an agreement with the Moroccan government to build a factory to produce rotor blades for onshore wind turbines in an investment worth more than €100m ($112m). Company spokesman Bernd Eilitz told African Energy that the facility would produce blades which would “be among the largest single-piece composites in the world”. Blades with a length of 63 metres will be produced initially, but the plant has been designed to also produce larger blade types. Construction could begin on the plant as early as this spring, and operations are expected to begin in 2017.

Progress is being made at the geothermal complexes in Naivasha district of Nakuru County, as prequalification gets under way to select an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor to build Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen)’s 70MW Olkaria I Unit VI and another contractor to construct the steam field. Drilling is also moving forward at the 70MW first phase of local company Akiira Geothermal Ltd’s 140MW geothermal power plant south of Olkaria, where the company plans to drill eight to 12 wells to depths of 3,000-3,500 metres.

It hardly needs saying that a strong South Africa is vital if a more integrated, sustainable and equitable Africa is to emerge. The continent’s second-largest economy (after Nigeria re-evaluated its GDP) is still a magnet for business; big construction projects continue to rise across Johannesburg. Throughout the country, forward-thinking South Africans retain a sense of what is morally right and also a taste for innovation. But there are also many conservative elements and vested interests – starting within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) – that are holding back gains.

Madagascar followed in the footsteps of Zambia and Senegal on 21 March, when the government signed an agreement with the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) to design and tender a partnership under the Scaling Solar initiative to develop privately owned grid connected solar power. The IFC said that “a large and sustainable 30-40MW solar facility will help ease daily interruptions of power service”. National utility Jirama relies predominantly on diesel engines for its generation, making electricity provision costly.

The 50MW Bokpoort concentrated solar power (CSP) project and 75MW Solar Capital De Aar III solar PV plant have both begun commercial operations in South Africa’s increasingly congested Northern Cape. The R50bn ($3.3bn) Bokpoort scheme was formally inaugurated on 14 March, making it the second utility-scale CSP to begin operating after Abengoa’s KaXu Solar One, which came online in February (AE 317/6), and the third CSP of note alongside MTN’s 0.33MW linear Fresnel cooling system.

Finland’s Valoe Corporation has announced a €15.8m ($17.3m) order for a solar module manufacturing plant, part funded by the Development Bank of Ethiopia. Some €9.5m of the sale price will be paid in cash, while Valoe will take a 30% share in the Ethiopian manufacturing partner to cover the balance. Valoe said the plant was expected to be delivered to Ethiopia later this year.

Rwandan renewable energy company Ngali Energy has started preliminary construction work on the 2MW Ntaruka hydropower project in the Nyaruguru district of Southern Province. The run-of-river project, which will cost an estimated $11m, is expected to be completed by 2018, according to managing director Leonard Gasana. “This project will help stabilise the grid in this part of the Southern Province and increase generation capacity of the country as Rwanda continues to strive to reach generation capacity of 563MW by 2018,” Gasana was quoted as saying in a 1 March report in the local New Times.