Sustainable Power Solutions (SPS) has acquired two 5 MW solar projects in Malmesbury, in the Western Cape, through the purchase of the shareholding in Slimsun Too. SPS is a developer and owner of solar PV and battery storage projects.
The US International Development Finance Corp (DFC) approved a loan of as much as $99-million to help finance Mozambique’s first utility-scale wind-power project. DFC will also provide $80-million in political risk insurance to Globeleq Africa, which is developing the 120 MW project near Namaacha in the south of the nation, the lender said in an emailed statement Tuesday. The project will require a total of about $268-million in funding, according to the DFC’s website.
Revego Fund Managers, which runs Africa’s first fund focused on primarily investing in operating renewable-energy assets, is seeking new investors as it works toward an eventual listing. The fund manager wants to raise about R3-billion to invest in projects to add to the R2-billion Revego Africa Energy Fund, a so-called yieldco focused on dividend flows, chief investment officer Ziyaad Sarang said. It will consider listing when it has about $500-million of assets under management and currently has a pipeline of about R10-billion in potential investments, he said.
An employee of State-owned Eskom and a service provider to the utility last week appeared in the Hendrina Magistrate Court, in Mpumalanga, on charges of fraud, with each granted bail of R30 000. It is alleged that, between January and April last year, the service provider supplied five valve stems – stolen from the Hendrina power station’s warehouse with the assistance of the Eskom employee – to the power station.
With continued cold winter weather, increasing electricity theft and the indiscriminate use of electricity, the issue of network overloading has resurfaced in seven of South Africa’s provinces, State-owned power utility Eskom advises.
The utility will, therefore, implement load reduction in Limpopo, the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North West and KwaZulu-Natal.
Despite Eskom having made progress on improving the country’s energy availability factor (EAF), lowering the unplanned capacity loss factor (UCLF) and achieving 100 consecutive days without loadshedding on July 5, the country is facing a new kind of energy crisis, Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has said.
In his first briefing for the now standalone ministry on July 8, the Minister warned that municipalities were investing too little on infrastructure maintenance and modernisation, with some having mismanagement issues, resulting in costly issues on the distribution side.
Engineering News editor Terence Creamer discusses President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to separate the energy portfolio from that of mineral and petroleum resources; what the priorities are for the new leadership of the energy portfolio; and the potential risks facing the new Ministry.
Electrical engineering company ProMarks and industrial conglomerate Trafigura have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Angola to conduct a technical and economic viability study and develop a public-private partnership model for a major regional power transmission and supply project. The proposed project will entail building and operating a 2 000 MW high-voltage electricity interconnector, which is a high-voltage direct current transmission line, to take surplus green electricity produced by hydroelectric dams located in the north of Angola to the Democratic Republic of Congo Copperbelt and Zambia, integrating with the Southern Africa Power Pool.
State-owned power utility Eskom has achieved 100 consecutive days without loadshedding, which reflects the enhanced reliability and performance of its generation fleet. The continuous suspension of loadshedding has been achieved against a backdrop of a significant decrease in the use of open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) to supplement generation capacity.
In support of special economic zone (SEZ) operator Coega Development Corporation’s ambitious renewable energy programme, the National Treasury has approved a limited recourse capital transaction – a first for the public sector.
The transaction will finance the Coega solar rooftop programme, which forms part of a larger renewable energy pipeline for the organisation.
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