Friday, 2 April

Dear <<First Name>>

After a recruitment drive that started way back in July we were delighted to welcome Shelmith Theuri and Vijandren Naidoo to the REPP Investment Committee this week. Working pro bono, they will assume an integral role in implementing REPP’s mandate and will be at the forefront of project selection and monitoring.

Shelmith joins the Investment Committee as a seasoned finance and investment professional who has spent the last five years of her career focusing on financing and supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency businesses and projects across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Vijandren is an electrical engineer by training and has been actively involved in developing, designing, constructing and operating solar and wind farms all over the world for the last 10 years.

From a pool of exceptional candidates, Shelmith and Vijandren outshone the others not just in terms of their experience, but also their passion for delivering climate mitigation and sustainable development through renewable energy, which is of course what REPP is all about. I honestly could not have hoped for a better outcome and am excited to work with them.

Cheers

Geoff Sinclair

Managing Director, Camco Clean Energy

West Africa

Cameroon: US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) awards grants for solar mini-grids (Afrik21)
- Recipients Renewable Energy Innovators Cameroon and SimpliPhi will use the funding to perform feasibility studies for a project aiming to electrify 100,000 rural households.

Côte d’Ivoire: Smart grids and solar energy programme to get USD155 million boost (Construction Review)
- The funding is the result of a credit agreement between the country’s government and the French Development Agency and will be used mostly for the construction of a ground-breaking 20MW floating solar station. 

Ghana: Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) calls for an end to government control (ESI Africa)
- ACEP Executive Director Ben Boayke believes the country’s power sector troubles are partly due to government management..

Ghana: Solar plant installed at Guinness brewery (Afrik21)
- Guinness Ghana Breweries transitioning to cleaner production processes as CrossBoundary installs 1,095kWp of rooftop solar.

Nigeria: The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to concession 700MW Zungeru hydro plant (Afrik21)
- BPE of Nigeria has launched a tender to recruit a collaborator in concessioning the plant with the aim of stimulating the provision of the country’s electricity services. The plant’s construction is 87% complete and it is expected to have an annual production of 2,630 GWh. 

East Africa

Ethiopia: Renewable Energy Solutions for Africa Foundation partners up with Ethiopian Women in Energy (ESI Africa)
- The two organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding based on their shared vision to promote women and young people in Africa’s clean energy sector.

Kenya: Country makes first attempt to track climate finance flows since Paris Agreement (Climate Policy Initiative)
- New report finds that USD2.4 billion flowed to investments related to climate in 2018 and that the tracked financing is disproportionately targeting sectors which only partially address the key issues. If this pattern is maintained, it is estimated that the country will fall short of its climate goals.

Madagascar: Mobile hybrid plant built for quarry (Construction Review)
- Green Energy Solutions has entered into an agreement with Colas Madagascar to build a 148kW solar plant coupled with a 600kW thermal power plant.

Mauritius: 8MW solar PV power plant to be built (Construction Review)
- The plant is funded by Government of India’s Line of Credit and, following a competitive bidding process, will be built at Tamarind Falls, Henreitta (Phase 2) by BHEL.

Southern Africa

Mozambique: Country may hold key to region’s clean energy transition (Energy Mix Report)
- Due to large gas reserves and billions of dollars in investment, Mozambique has a rare chance to deploy a flexible power strategy that could benefit both domestic and regional markets. 

South Africa: Draft climate pledge offers faster emission cuts (Engineering News)
- Updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is unveiled outlining the need for a change in international climate finance to support low-carbon transition.

South Africa: Independent utility emerges in pursuit of private-to-private power niche (Engineering News)
- The Earth & Wire utility has been established to enter into PPAs with municipal customers rather than Eskom. .

South Africa: Local wind farm launches system to protect birds (ESI Africa)
- BioTherm Energy’s Excelsior farm is collaborating with conservationists to implement an observer-led ‘Shut Down on Demand’ system to reduce industry impact on avifauna.

Africa - general

General: African hydrogen economy could power desalination for nations affected by droughts (PV-Magazine)
- African Solar Industry Association and the African Hydrogen Partnership hosted a virtual conference to debate green hydrogen’s role in both growing the continent’s economy and desalinating countries such as Germany and Japan.

General: Economy of Sub-Saharan Africa needs job reform to recover (ESI Africa)
- It is estimated that the region’s growth has contracted by 2% but prospects should strengthen amid action to contain COVID-19 waves and vaccine roll outs.

General: Power Africa releases 2020 annual report (ESI Africa) 
- Since launching in 2013, the USAID coordinated interagency initiative has facilitated connection for over 18 million homes and brought over 11,000MW to financial close. 

Egypt: Scatec establishes 30% female engineer workforce to promote gender equality (PV-Magazine)
- The organisation believes workforce diversity provides the solution to many challenges the company and country alike face and focuses on non-gender-biased competencies in the recruitment process. 

Rest of World

USA: Biden starts to make good on his climate promises (Independent) 
- The Biden administration has announced almost 800,000 acres off the coast of New York and New Jersey as wind power priority zones, guaranteed with a USD3 billion loan.

Global: US joins more than 40 countries at UK-hosted summit to identify how nations can work together to meet climate goals (ESI Africa) 
- Wednesday’s IEA-COP26 Net Zero Summit event aimed to set an international agenda ahead of June’s G7 summit and COP26 UN talks in November that would ensure no country was left behind in the green recovery.

General: Solar predicted to defy module price (PV-Tech)
- Over 180GW of solar to be deployed globally in 2021, a YOY growth of 27%, as the sector defies headwinds of increased module process and supply chain constraints.

Share this newsletter!

Currencies