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Economic recovery from Covid-19 threatened by geopolitical tension surrounding Ukraine

Signs of a slow recovery in manufacturing so far this year – which were in part being driven by improvements in production in Europe and Asia – may now be threatened by escalating geopolitical tension in Europe on the back of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and a simultaneous resurgence of the Covid-19 virus in China, research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan consulting analyst Nomvo Kasolo said on March 17. “However, pockets of opportunity exist for markets that can fill the gaps in exports from Russia,” she noted.
March 18, 2022 by

Irmsa warns economy is in for drastic growth decline should fuel caps, Stage 8 load-shedding ensue

With resurgent warnings about load-shedding potentially increasing as high as Stage 8 and the possibility of fuel rationing in the domestic market, the Institute for Risk Management South Africa’s (Irmsa’s) ‘Risk Report’ for 2022 states that the South African economy is in for serious energy risks.

Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer recently confirmed that the State-owned power utility was using nine-million litres of diesel a day at its open-cycle gas turbines in order to avoid load-shedding or to keep load-shedding at lower levels while its coal fleet is struggling to meet supply.

March 18, 2022 by

Wood Mackenzie unpacks the changing elec landscape in Africa

Global energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie is confident that sub-Saharan Africa offers an alternative vision of how the energy transition can change power generation.

“The evolution of sub-Saharan Africa’s utility business model, both on and off the grid, will fundamentally reshape the trajectory of global electricity demand and will be essential to the energy transition.

March 17, 2022 by

Eskom sees R20.9bn of extra diesel costs on coal outages

Indebted State-owned power utility expects running costs for its diesel-fed turbines, which are used to keep the lights on when coal-powered plants break down, to surge as it struggles to keep up with maintenance. Eskom Holdings sees about a third of its coal-fired capacity being unavailable at any one time under a most likely scenario, it said last week in a presentation to the National Economic Development and Labour Council, which groups business, government and labor union representatives. That would require it to spend R20.9-billion on fueling its open-cycle gas turbines in the 13 months through April next year, or almost three times what it spent in the financial year ended March last year.
March 17, 2022 by

Spark+ Africa Fund reaches first financial close

The Spark+ Africa Fund, which is an impact investment fund focused on financing the value chains of clean and modern cooking appliances and fuels to make them available to more people across sub-Saharan Africa, has raised more than $40-million in a first close. Clean cooking businesses face many challenges, including limited access to investment capital to increase their production and distribution capacity, high-risk perception and an insufficient return profile to attract commercial investment. Spark+ directly responds to these challenges and is a key component of development finance institution the African Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) actions in the area of clean cooking.
March 16, 2022 by

National Infrastructure Plan 2050 leans heavily on private sector to close R2tr finance gap

The first iteration of the updated National Infrastructure Plan 2050 (NIP 2050) points to a substantial finance gap of at least R2-trillion that will have to be closed if South Africa is to build the economic infrastructure required to deliver the growth and social objectives outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP). Gazetted last week by Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille, the document focuses exclusively on energy, water, freight transport and digital communications infrastructure, with a second iteration to follow focusing on distributed infrastructure and related municipal services.
March 16, 2022 by