Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and Egypt’s Infinity Group plan to raise as much as $4-billion to double the size of a recently acquired business that’s already Africa’s biggest renewable power company. The two firms agreed to buy Lekela Power last week and are seeking between $2.5-billion and $4-billion from capital markets over the next four years, Samaila Zubairu, AFC’s chief executive officer and president, said in an interview.
Shareholder activist organisation Just Share has analysed financial services firm Absa’s recently published Coal Financing Standard and Oil and Gas Financing Standard, as well as Absa’s 2022 disclosures partially aligned with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (2021 TCFD Report), and says “Absa’s intention is quite clearly to continue to fund coal, oil and gas projects.” The bank’s oil and gas standard states that “Absa will strive to achieve a balanced energy portfolio funding diversification mix between renewable energy, oil, natural gas, biomass, hydrogen and coal”, Just Share climate change engagement director Robyn Hugo says.
Civil rights organisation AfriForum has launched its #MyPower campaign following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that businesses and households will be allowed to install solar power with no licencing threshold and feed excess power into the grid. The campaign is asking for a mandate that AfriForum and its service company Pionier can negotiate on behalf of households and businesses with the newly established Energy Crisis Committee, as well as with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa on regulations for private power generation, sales to the power grid and tariffs.
Minerals Council South Africa says it supports the inclusion of the private sector in government’s plan to resolve the country’s electricity crisis. “President Cyril Ramaphosa outlined a detailed plan by the government to abolish the 100 MW licensing cap on private sector renewable energy projects, ensure greater private sector participation to urgently install electricity generation capacity, address Eskom’s R400-billion debt and its internal crime and corruption problems, and streamline regulatory processes by eliminating red tape.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan to tackle the power crisis in South Africa, as announced and unpacked on July 25, has been well received by the business, labour, academic and environmental communities, but many call for firm deadlines to be added to the plan.
Industry body Business Unity South Africa (Busa) CEO Cas Coovadia says the head of State duly considered the private sector and energy experts’ proposals for stabilising and securing the country’s energy supply.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) announced on Tuesday that it will monitor government’s progress in its energy plan and hold it to account with the launch of the party’s Energy Plan Implementation Tracker. On Monday evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled several far-reaching interventions – including a doubling in the allocation for the next renewables procurement round, the scrapping of the 100 MW licence-exemption threshold for distributed generators and a proposal of a feed-in tariff for self-generating households and businesses – as part of a much-anticipated action plan for ending load-shedding.
State-owned national ports operator Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) has issued a request for information (RFI) to the private sector as it intends to procure between 50 MW and 80 MW of renewable energy across its eight commercial seaports – Richards Bay, Durban, Saldanha, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Mossel Bay and Ngqura.
TNPA recently carried out an internal audit, which indicated a need to stabilise the entity’s energy supply and costs, and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions at the eight commercial seaports.
President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled several far-reaching interventions – including a doubling in the allocation for the next renewables procurement round, the scrapping of the 100 MW licence-exemption threshold for distributed generators and a proposal of a feed-in tariff for self-generating households and businesses – as part of a much-anticipated action plan for ending load-shedding. While refraining from declaring the “national crisis” a state of disaster as sought by some opposition parties, the President also announced that “special legislation” would be placed before Parliament to address remaining legal and regulatory obstacles to the urgent introduction of new capacity.
British International Investment (BII) has hired Rothschild & Co to review options for how to grow Globeleq, an operator of African power plants, according to people familiar with the matter. The UK’s development finance institution, formerly known as CDC, owns 70% of Globeleq and is considering bringing in a new investor to join existing minority shareholder Norfund, the people said.
South Africa plans to try and resolve its chronic power shortage by making it easier for private companies to build plants and paying households and businesses to produce electricity from solar panels. The urgent need to fix the country’s 14-year electricity crisis has been laid bare by five weeks of power outages that ended last week, the worst since the near-collapse of the grid in 2008. President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ruling African National Congress have been heavily criticized over their inability to resolve the problem, despite repeated promises to do so.
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