Friday, 5 March

Dear <<First Name>>

In the news this week, it was reported that Africa is using a mere 0.01% of its wind potential. And this is despite a big upsurge in wind power developments that last year saw 821MW of new capacity installed in Africa and the Middle East region, pushing total capacity to over 7GW.

As the manager of REPP, Camco is working directly to stimulate the growth of a viable market for small and distributed renewable energy projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, including wind. In June last year, the REPP-supported Mwenga project became Tanzania’s first operational wind farm, adding an extra 2.4MW of renewable power to the country’s energy mix.

This is just one of many cases of progress being made across the continent, and I am delighted to see the sector has not been knocked off course by COVID-19, with last year’s growth nearly equal to that of 2019.

But as GWEC’s report reminds us, Africa reportedly has enough wind resource potential to power its entire energy demand 250 times over. So while it is uplifting to see Africa’s wind sector grow, where the sector is today is like a drop in the ocean to where it could be with the necessary political will and investment.

Cheers

Geoff Sinclair 

Managing Director, Camco Clean Energy

West Africa

Ghana: Government to invest USD1 billion to refinance power sector loans (AEP) / (Bloomberg)
- Renegotiation with independent power producers is expected to save a significant amount of capital and there are plans for the proceeds from last year's Euro Bond sale to be used as financing.

Nigeria: Work resumes on the 3GW Mambilla hydropower project (Energy Mix Report)
- The Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, has intervened in order to put the USD5.8 billion project back on track.

Southern Africa

Malawi: 20MW Golomoti solar project enters construction phase (Afrik21)
- The project is being developed by IPP JCM Power and will have a storage component of 5MW/10MWh to optimise output.

Mozambique: Ncondezi Energy relaunches work on 400kWp solar project (Afrik21)
- The off-grid C&I project was forced to pause operations due to COVID-19. However, thanks to a bridge loan from investors and the country reopening, work is now resuming.

South Africa: ENGIE acquires 40% stake in 100MW CSP plant (ESI)
- Acquisition of Xina Solar One plant from Abengoa, will expand ENGIE’s presence in the country and make it a  leading IPP.

South Africa: 515MW of wind capacity deployed in 2020 (Engineering News)
- The country continues to be a leader in wind energy deployment as cumulative capacity tops 2.5GW.

East Africa

DRC: Proparco provides USD1 million for Nuru expansion (Afrik21)
- This financing will enable Nuru to expand into several new provinces and help the country with its energy transition.

Ethiopia: Government rejects call for additional mediators (Bloomberg)
- According to the Ethiopian government, Sudan and Egypt’s request to bring in meditators is demeaning the efforts of the African Union.

Kenya: Kenya Tea Development Agency seeks IPPs to supply tea factories (Bloomberg)
- KTDA is on the lookout for hydropower contractors and other power developers to increase the capacity of its tea factories and processing plants.

Kenya: Fishermen swap petrol motors for electric engines (BBC)

Africa - general

Wind: Africa is only using 0.01% of its wind potential (ESI)
- The latest figures released by the Global Wind Energy Council show that 821MW of new wind power was added across Africa and the Middle East in 2020, although many African markets have yet to install wind capacity.

Rest of World

General: Global emissions are back to normal and climbing quickly according to IEA (ESI)
- Estimates show that emissions in December 2020 were 2% higher than the same month in 2019 and will continue to rapidly increase as economies start to reopen.

General: Rising copper prices are making the green revolution more costly (Engineering News)
- As the material reaches a nine-year high, developers brace for more expensive infrastructure.

Currencies