Friday, 12 February

Dear <<First Name>>

South Africa’s commercial and industrial sector will be in a celebratory mood this weekend, after President Cyril Ramaphosa last night announced a game-changing amendment to electricity regulations that is expected to improve energy security and pave the way for economic growth in the country.

Currently, businesses require a generation license if they want to install any system largely than 1MW. This limits the size and growth potential of South Africa’s embedded generation, leaving many businesses exposed to a costly and unreliable supply from the national utility, Eskom.

In his State of the Nation address last night, President Ramaphosa said that the 1MW threshold will be raised within the next three months, after recent analysis suggested that increasing it to 50MW could unlock at least 5GW of additional capacity. 

Local businesses and installers now await confirmation of the new threshold. Regardless of the higher threshold, this is good news for the market, for energy security and for South Africa’s economic growth prospects.

Cheers

Geoff Sinclair

Managing Director, Camco Clean Energy

West Africa

Benin: Results-based finance facility now open for mini-grid projects (ESI)
- The Universal Energy Facility, managed by SEforAll and funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), will disburse grant payments to deliver over 7,000 electricity connections.

Nigeria: Universities to support Africa's largest off-grid solar hybrid project (ESI)
- The Energising Education Programme aims to power 37 universities and seven teaching hospitals. To date, a third of the planned 89.6MW of generation capacity has been installed.

Nigeria: World Bank to provide USD500 million to support electricity distribution sector (ESI)
- The aim is to boost electricity access by introducing a large-scale metering programme and providing financial support to private distribution companies once specific results have been achieved.

Southern Africa

South Africa: Electricity regulation amendments to raise license-exemption cap for generation projects  (Engineering News)
- The amendments are expected to take effect in the next three months and will raise the cap from 1MW, thus increasing embedded generation capacity in the country.

East Africa

Djibouti/Kenya: KenGen wins geothermal drilling contract for three wells in Djibouti (ThinkGeoEnergy)
- The USD6.5 million contract highlights KenGen's expansion and growing role in the region.

Kenya: CDC invests in Quantum Power to relaunch the Menengai II geothermal plant (Afrik21)
- Work on the 35MW geothermal project came to a standstill in 2013.

Kenya: KenGen records 8.3% profit growth and pays USD10.5 million dividend to Treasury (ESI)
- The dividends are being paid for the financial year ended June 2019, while the profits reflect a strong performance through financial year 2020.

Kenya: Norfund invests USD15 million in Brighter Life Kenya 1 Limited scheme (Afrik21)
- BLK1 was launched in 2020 to finance solar home systems using local currency.

Africa - general

Batteries: Highview Power raises USD70 million to deploy battery storage systems (Afrik21)
- Combine with subsidies, USD145 million has been made available to the company to deploy its new “CRYOBattery” throughout Africa.

Solar irrigation: SunCulture obtains USD11 million for its solar-powered irrigation systems (Afrik21)
- The facility was set up by Triodos Investment Management, Nordic Development Fund, AlphaMundi and the African Development Bank. It was part of a transaction arranged by SunFunder.

Rest of World

General: Macquarie raises USD1.94 billion for wind and solar portfolio (PV-Tech)
- The investment group has exceeded its fundraising target by more than USD600 million.

Currencies