Friday, 28 May

Dear <<First Name>>

Was anyone else totally unsurprised this week to hear from the World Bank that carbon pricing efforts are not on track to meet the Paris Agreement goals? Although carbon pricing instruments now cover over 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, less than 5% of prices are in the recommended range to meet the ‘well below 2°C’ target. 

I know that there is a tremendous amount of hard work being put into meeting the targets by an awful lot of people. But taken en masse, I think it is blindingly obvious that things are not where we all hoped they would be by now back in December 2015. Investment continues to flood into fossil fuels, and not nearly enough money is finding its way into renewables and other sustainable endeavours.

I am an eternal optimist, however, and think that COP26 in November might just be the turning point on the climate emergency that we are all hoping for. Investors are joining up the dots between making money and turning the world a better place, while realising that by failing to act now they are doing so at their own peril. 

Indeed, one of the key takeaways from the opening plenary of Innovate4Climate this week (where the World Bank released its State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report) was that “climate risk is investment risk”. I don’t think you can put it more plainly than that.

Cheers

Geoff 

Managing Director, Camco Clean Energy

West Africa

Guinea: InfraCo Africa and IPP Solvéo secure 25-year PPA for Khoumagueli plant (PV-Magazine)
- The 40MWac plant is likely the first phase of the 88MW project that was announced by the French government in 2017.

Senegal: Lekela Power selects DNV for feasibility study of Taiba N'Diaye wind farm (Afrik21)
- The Danish company will help to develop the technical specifications of the facility's battery component, for which construction is set to begin in 2022.

East Africa

Tanzania: AfDB to provide USD140 million loan for the construction of the 50MW Malagarasi hydro plant (ESI)
- The agreement consists of a USD120 million sovereign loan in addition to USD20 million from the Africa Growing Together Fund.

Southern Africa

Lesotho: Mozambique utility EDM renews 12 month contract (ESI)
- This renewal will allow the publicly owned EDM to supply between 5 and 35MW of power to the Lesotho Electricity Company.

Lesotho: Global enforcement order leads to seizure of government’s international assets (Engineering News)
- Following the award of USD50 million in damages to Frazer Solar, the government's revenue from both electricity and water may be seized, along with its share of an undersea communications cable.

Mozambique: Spanish firm TSK wins EPC contract for 20MWp Cuamba solar plant (Afrik21)
- The project is being developed by IPP Globeleq and will have a storage component of 7.42MWh, which will help to stabilise the local grid.

South Africa: Government’s reconsideration of local content requirements escalates industry ire (Engineering News)
- The 65% requirement on solar panel aluminium frames has been scrapped. This news followed the announcement of two manufacturers being awarded tenders which consequently positions them as the only beneficiaries of this exemption.

Africa - general

General: Proparco invests USD10 million in solar home systems supplier d.light (Afrik21)
- Proparco, a subsidiary of the French Development Agency group, will inject the capital in order to help the business expand its operations and footprint across the continent.

General: The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa extends USD1 million grant to accelerate energy transition (ESI)
- The technical assistance grant will enable up to five African countries to participate in a COP26 Energy Transition Council which aims to identify financing mechanisms and assess possible gaps in policy, regulatory and institutional frameworks.

Rest of World

General: Global solar supply chain is scrutinised (PV-Magazine)
- Discussions around the prominence of forced labour in the solar value chain continue as the world focuses its attention on Chinese polysilicon manufacturers.

Off-Grid: Off-grid solar appliance sales continue to fall (PV-Magazine)
- Rising hardware costs, the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertain policies have all hampered the recovery of the off-grid market which remains below the peak levels reached in 2019.

Solar: Solar power’s decade of falling costs is thrown into reverse (Engineering News)
- Solar module prices have risen 18% since the start of the year. This trend is largely fuelled by a substantial increase in the cost of polysilicon.

Share this newsletter!

Currencies