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Mogadishu-headquartered Blue Sky Energy’s solar PV/diesel hybrid plant in the Dayniile district has reached a timely new milestone, with demand for power increasingly rapidly in the city. As well as being an IPP, Blue Sky acts as a distribution company and has its own transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure network.  The company’s chief technical officer Abdullahi Abdi took African Energy through its plans.

First details have emerged of the integrated power plant at Dangote Group’s 650,000 b/d Lagos refinery, commissioned on 22 May.

South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has outlined plans to procure nearly 17GW of generation capacity from different technologies in FY2023/24, in new efforts aimed at increasing electricity supply and tackling crippling shortages.

International energy majors are investing to raise oil and gas output and developing solar plants, while others are looking to tap into Angola’s critical minerals and other resources plays. With news flow suggesting considerable activity in diverse energy-related industries, but wary of governance shortfalls, African Energy asks: is it time for investors to get excited about Angola?

Although Angola’s renewable energy potential is exciting some industry interest, an electricity supply industry that is based on large hydroelectric power (HEP) and gas-to-power plants to provide baseload is unlikely to be radically transformed in the coming years. Amid concern over the impact of low water levels on HEP generation, it is natural gas that will occupy most government attention.

Angolan power projects contractor Aenergy and its Portuguese owner Ricardo Leitão Machado are continuing an extensive and detailed legal campaign in the United States and United Kingdom against Luanda-based state entities and various General Electric (GE)-related businesses.

Botswana Stock Exchange-listed Shumba Energy has secured debt and equity funding for its flagship 100MW Tati solar PV project near Francistown. Shumba is also moving forward with several coal mining and power projects in Botswana.

With winter on the horizon and no sign of an end to the energy crisis, the South African government is considering slowing down its decommissioning plans for the country’s fleet of ageing coal-fired power stations, but international partners have called on it to stick to its Just Energy Transition Partnership commitments, writes Tonderayi Mukeredzi.

The 100MW Sirakoro heavy fuel oil (HFO) plant has been connected to Energie du Mali (EdM)’s grid, according to Lebanese engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor Matelec.

The prospects for giga-scale renewable power projects in North Africa have never been better, leveraging off export-led green hydrogen projects and the advantages of adding cheap non-emitting capacity to already well-developed grids. But the latest figures from African Energy Live Data show that, over the next five years, North Africa will instead pour ever more natural gas into a growing fleet of open cycle plants, while relatively few wind and solar projects have firm completion dates.

High inflation and a global energy crisis are forcing a rethink on how the world might make the transition from hydrocarbons to renewable energy. Until recently, rich-world policy-makers and think tanks had been pushing to electrify global energy demand as quickly as possible and in many parts of the world a de facto moratorium on new hydrocarbon projects had taken hold. But reports of the demise of gas have been greatly exaggerated.

Zambia is to send a team of technocrats to Mozambique in May to discuss imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and power, according to energy minister Peter Kapala. The potential development of a cross-border rail line is also likely to be on the agenda.

State-owned utility Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (Onee) has issued a tender for the construction of a 900MW open cycle gas turbine (OCGT) power plant adjacent to Al-Wahda dam and the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline (GME). The project’s estimated cost is MD6bn ($592m).

A recent flurry of activity by outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari will help his successor Bola Tinubu to tackle key macroeconomic problems, including cutting subsidies and overhauling the exchange rate. It could pave the way for a more proactive government at a time of extreme economic and other stresses, writes Jon Marks.

Much of Sudan’s infrastructure was in a parlous state before murderous and indiscriminate faction fighting broke out in mid-April, but the situation is set to get worse still with control of power plants and oil facilities now split between forces under rival generals Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti). The crisis shows how densely populated modern cities can be reduced to ruin and complex geopolitical shifts are impacting on stability in fragile polities, write Aziz Alnour and John Hamilton.