New initiative launched to raise awareness on key role of power grids in Africa

The RES4Africa Foundation, an Italian non-profit organisation that promotes the development of renewable energy on the continent, has launched a Grids4Africa initiative to support the development of the transmission and distribution networks needed to raise levels of renewables deployment and energy access. Nearly 600-million Africans currently do not have access to electricity and the Covid-19 crisis has, for the first time in a decade, reversed recent gains made in improving access.
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DMRE continues to monitor safety, security of energy and mining sectors

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) continues to monitor the safety and security of the energy and mining sectors amid ongoing acts of looting, destruction in violence across South Africa, but particularly in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe also continues to interact with all energy and mining sector role-players during the ongoing unrest, the department states.
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AfDB sustainable energy fund secures $90m in new funding

The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (Sefa), managed by development finance institution the African Development Bank (AfDB), approved seven high-impact projects worth $54-million in 2020, the fund’s 2020 Annual Report shows. The fund also attracted increased donor funding and secured commitments worth $90-million from existing and new donors in the year, including from the German Ministry for Development Cooperation and the Nordic Development Fund, both of which joined Sefa in 2020.
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Nedbank leverages additional tier one instruments to help drive a net-zero economy

To strategically finance the transition to a net-zero economy, financial services provider Nedbank has once again approached the investment market to raise ‘use-of-proceeds’ green finance, this time through the issuance of the first listed green additional tier one instrument by a financial institution in Africa. The equivalent notional amount of funding raised through the green additional tier one issuance will be directed strategically to support the financing of new green infrastructure projects in South Africa.
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Consortium unveils plans for zero-emission Eastern Cape e-methanol plant

An agreement for the development of a greenfield facility in Humansdorp, in the Eastern Cape, to manufacture zero-carbon e-methanol for sale locally and for export has been concluded by a consortium comprising Earth and Wire, ENERTRAG South Africa and 24Solutions. The proposed facility will produce e-methanol by combining green hydrogen, produced through an electrolyser using renewable electricity and desalinated seawater, with a synthesis gas, derived from a mixed feedstock of locally sourced biomass and unrecyclable municipal solid waste fed into a gasifier.
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Affected parties invited to comment on Eskom’s latest ash, gypsum disposal proposal

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has published, for comment, a draft amendment report on a proposed ash and gypsum co-disposal facility owned by State-owned power utility Eskom.

The Integrated Environmental Authorisation initially issued by the department in 2015 has since been amended three times.

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Steel giant to harness green hydrogen, renewables to produce zero-carbon steel

Steel group ArcelorMittal has signed an undertaking with the Spanish government in support of a €1-billion plan to construct a green hydrogen direct reduced iron (DRI) plant and a new hybrid electric arc furnace (EAF) at its facility in Gijón, in Asturias, as part of a pioneering move to transition the company’s Sestao plant, also in Spain, to a net-zero facility by the end of 2025. The proposed development has been outlined in a memorandum of understanding, signed this week, in which ArcelorMittal indicates that its Sestao plant is set to become the world’s first full-scale steel plant to manufacture zero carbon emissions steel.
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AfDB provides $6m grant to launch West Africa desert-to-power programme

Development finance institution the African Development Bank (AfDB) has provided a $6-million grant to the West African Power Pool (WAPP) to conduct prefeasibility studies for the construction of the Sahel Transmission Backbone that will link regional solar parks in five countries that contribute to the WAPP. The grant is to launch the initial phase of the Desert to Power West Africa Regional Energy Programme. The AfDB-led Desert to Power initiative is expected to transform the Sahel by harnessing the region’s abundant solar potential.
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Trina Solar expands into South Africa with new distribution facility

Solar photovoltaic (PV) and energy solutions provider Trina Solar will be launching a new distribution facility in South Africa. The expansion, the company says in a statement on July 13, comes as a step that further “caters to the company’s overarching expansion strategy to grow in the region”.
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Shell expresses concern over RMIPPPP delays as it confirms Karpowership SA partnership

Shell South Africa country chairperson Hloniphizwe Mtolo has confirmed that the energy group is the exclusive supplier of liquified natural gas (LNG) to Karpowership SA, whose three projects, totalling 1 220 MW, were named in March as preferred bidders under government’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP). In a statement, Mtolo argued that the three projects would assist the country to address its prevailing electricity shortfall and that Shell was “extremely concerned” about delays to the RMIPPPP.
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