Friday, 5 February

Dear <<First Name>>

To properly address the climate crisis requires system-wide change across all sectors of society - and central to making that happen is innovation and disrupting the status quo.

I read with pleasure - but not much surprise - this week that a European Commission-led study into the potential benefits of installing floating solar PV on hydropower reservoirs in Africa concluded that it would indeed lead to multiple advantages. 

Using satellite images and reservoir data from 146 large-scale hydropower plants, the researchers found that the plants could double their capacity by covering just 1% of their reservoirs! At the same time the installations could, among other things, reduce water evaporation and increase resilience to climate change without redesigning existing infrastructure.

News like this is a reminder that we don’t always need to look too hard for answers to today’s most pressing challenges. Sometimes, they are right in front of our noses.

Cheers

Geoff

Managing Director, Camco Clean Energy

West Africa

Nigeria: REA to provide grants to Renewvia and PowerGen (Afrik21)
- The performance-based funding has been awarded to the mini-grid suppliers to support electrification of several rural villages. 

Sierra Leone: World Bank approves USD50 million grant to increase electricity access (Afrik21)
- The funds will help kickstart the implementation of the country's Electricity Access Improvement Project and will be allocated through the bank's subsidiary, the International Development Association (IDA).

Southern Africa

Angola: Hitachi ABB Power Grids joins consortium to upgrade electricity infrastructure (ESI)
- The company will provide equipment and services to help connect several large solar PV plants to the grid.

General: AREP to expand its operations in Southern Africa after acquiring stake in Sola Group (Afrik21)
- African Rainbow Energy and Power acquires 40% stake making it the majority shareholder in the energy company.

East Africa

Kenya: KPLC launches tender to retrofit 23 diesel mini-grids with renewables (PV-Magazine)
- 21 of the mini-grids will be retrofitted with solar, one with wind and one with a solar-wind hybrid. The deadline to submit bids is 2 March.

Kenya: KenGen reports higher than expected earnings (ThinkGeoEnergy)
- Increase largely attributable to a new geothermal power plant and income from geothermal service business.

Africa - other

General: Study finds potential for co-locating floating solar with hydropower (PV-Tech) / (Study)
- The European Commission-led study claims installing floating solar on reservoirs could significantly increase capacity while improving efficiency and reducing evaporation.

General: AFSIA-webinar highlights two innovative methods to funding African solar (PV-Magazine)
- Carbon credit finance and peer-to-peer solar PV cell leasing among most innovative methods of generating investment in the sector.

General: Energy access is key to sub-Saharan Africa's economic recovery (World Resources Institute)
- The pandemic has presented the region with an opportunity to transition from fossil fuels and increase renewable investment, which could have significant positive impacts.

Rest of World

General: How the race for renewable energy is reshaping global politics (FT)
- Competition for renewables and its associated minerals and technologies may change the world for the better.

Investment: BNEF says investment in renewables in 2020 was 9% higher than previous year (ESI)
- The world committed an estimated USD501.3 billion to decarbonisation efforts despite Covid-19.

Wind: US wind power installations reach record 17GW in 2020 (Bloomberg)
- Much of the growth came in the fourth quarter as developers moved to complete projects before the expected expiration of federal tax incentives.

Currencies