Electricity demand to grow to 2030, while 2 500 GW of projects are stalled

Global power demand is set to grow by 3.6% a year on average over the rest of this decade, with electricity generation from renewables, natural gas and nuclear all expanding to keep pace, says international organisation the International Energy Agency (IEA). Yearly demand growth over the next five years is set to be 50% higher on average compared with the average across the previous decade. This is the first time in three decades, excluding periods of crisis‑related disruption, that global electricity demand has outpaced economic growth in what is set to become a broader trend in the coming years.
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Cape Town goes private to boost electricity and water supply

Cape Town will call for tenders to implement several major projects that aim at cutting electricity costs and bolstering water security in South Africa’s second-biggest city and main tourist hub. The municipality will this month begin the process of engaging an electricity trading company to provide it with additional power, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said. Later in the year, it will ask private companies to bid on multibillion-rand desalination and water re-usage plants, he added.
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RMB provides R4.45bn funding to expand Reatile’s energy investments

Financial institution Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) has structured a R4.45-billion funding package to support energy investment company Reatile Group’s expansion across South Africa’s energy sector, including significant investments in renewable energy. The financing positions Reatile to scale its impact across gas, petrochemicals, fuel storage and renewable energy.
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BLSA Reform Tracker says Eskom unbundling strategy ‘broke with the approved reform plan’

The latest Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) Reform Tracker Quarterly Review says there has been “concerning backwards movement in the critical electricity sector”, attributing the regression primarily to the revised unbundling plan for Eskom unveiled in December. While stressing that the “broad trajectory remains” positive for the reforms being monitored by the tracker, BLSA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso said the unbundling strategy represented “a step backwards from the independent transmission system operator model that Operation Vulindlela, the National Energy Crisis Committee and National Treasury have been working towards”.
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Eskom unbundling plan could be ‘major setback’ for electricity reform – Busa

Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has expressed concern that the Eskom unbundling plan announced in December might represent a “major setback” for the reforms under way in the electricity sector and is seeking urgent clarity as to why the policymaker has endorsed the plan. CEO Khulekani Mathe tells Engineering News that organised business was taken by surprise by the announcement that the National Transmission Company South Africa would remain an Eskom Holdings subsidiary and that the transmission assets would not be transferred to a new Transmission System Operator (TSO) being set up outside of Eskom.
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Afreximbank announces initial $8bn funding package for South Africa as a new shareholder

President Cyril Ramaphosa has overseen the signing of South Africa’s accession to the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) establishment agreement after Parliament approved the move in November last year. As a consequence of the signing, which was executed by Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau and witnessed by Ramaphosa on February 4, in Johannesburg, Afreximbank president George Elombi announced that the bank had put together an initial $8-billion funding package for South Africa, geared at supporting the country’s National Development Plan (NDP) and National Industrial Policy Framework.
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Seriti Green appoints Motloung as COO as projects move into operation

Renewable energy independent power producer Seriti Green has appointed Chabisi Motloung as COO, as the company’s projects, including the giant Ummbila Emoyeni Wind Farm in Mpumalanga, move into operation. The first three faces of Ummbila Emoyeni are now under construction, and involve wind projects with a combined capacity of 465 MW, as well as a new main transmission substation. The full 900 MW development will involve five wind farms, a solar PV generator and a battery storage facility.
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Experts unpack pertinent grid constraint issues

South Africa’s electricity transmission grid constraints pose challenges such as delaying projects and hampering electricity investment; however, the impact of this is fully understood by stakeholders, and therefore, interventions are under way to mitigate this, with collaboration pivotal to this process. This was indicated by speakers participating in Creamer Media’s “Investing in South Africa’s Electricity Transmission Grid” webinar on February 3. The panel – facilitated by Brian Day, and …
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New project management office set up to support Sarem implementation

A project management office (PMO) has been established to support the implementation of the South African Renewable Energy Master Plan (Sarem) – the country’s industrialisation strategy for the renewable energy and battery storage value chains approved in 2025. The PMO will be based at the Independent Power Producers Office, in Centurion, Pretoria. 
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African countries pushing forward with nuclear energy programmes

African countries are aiming to achieve a total nuclear power generating capacity of 15 GW by 2035, most of it in West Africa. This would require a capital investment of $105-billion. This was highlighted at a recent webinar organised by the Nuclear Business Platform consultancy, with the participation of officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria. More than 15 African countries had formal nuclear energy programmes, at different stages of development. These ranged from the adoption of the necessary policies to the development of regulations, and from site selection to discussions with vendors.
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