AfDB grants Morocco energy company $965 000 for renewables transition

The African Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (Sefa) is providing a $965 000 grant to Morocco’s Société d’Ingénierie Energétique (SIE), to support its transition into the first “super energy service company (Esco)” initiative in Africa.

Sefa is an AfDB-managed special fund, providing finance for renewable energy projects.

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DMRE says emergency-power deviation notice will not trigger legal challenge

On February 12, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel published a Gazette notice granting the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) permission to deviate from the relevant Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment code of good practice for the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP). Through the RMIPPPP, government is aiming to procure 2 000 MW of ‘emergency’ power for operation by June 2022. The evaluation of the 28 bids received ahead of the submission deadline, which was extended to December 22 from an initial deadline of November 24, is under way and is expected to be completed this month.
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Eskom’s ‘deplorable’ R840m Kusile housing blunder could go to local community

Eskom is considering handing over its R840 million white elephant of a block of flats near Witbank to local community members –  after cost overruns described by its CEO André de Ruyter as “deplorable”.  The Wilge Residential Development Project was meant to house contractors and artisans working at Kusile power station in 336 flats.  
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Construction on Inga 3 hydropower project could start by year end, ambassador says

Democratic Republic of Congo’s ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union, Jean Le’on Ngandu Ilunga has hinted that construction on the Inga 3 hydro-power project could start by the end of the year. “We believe in the coming month we will see concrete steps towards implementation. Towards the end of this year, some concrete steps will be seen on the ground,” he said in response to a question by News24 during an online seminar organised by the Institute for Security Studies.
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EIUG says tariff hike will curtail economic recovery efforts

The Energy Intensive Users Group of Southern Africa (EIUG) has noted “with disappointment” the Eskom price increase announced on February 16.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has agreed to the State-owned power utility increasing its tariff by 15.6% for the 2021/22 financial year.

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R10bn Eskom-Nersa settlement opens way for double-digit hike on April 1

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) and Eskom have reached an agreement to add R10-billion to Eskom’s allowable revenue in 2021/22, to be recovered through the tariff, pending the outcome of an appeal of a 2020 High Court ruling directing the regulator to immediately add back R23-billion of a larger R69-billion equity injection illegally deducted from the utility’s allowable revenue. The settlement was confirmed in a February 15 court order made by Justice Joseph Raulinga, who, on January 29, heard Eskom’s application to have the High Court order executed pending Nersa’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).
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Eskom could launch bidding for repurposing and repowering of Komati within two months

State-owned power utility Eskom is preparing a pioneering request for proposals (RFP) for the repowering and repurposing of the Komati power station, in Mpumalanga, which is among the first four coal plants scheduled for decommissioning in the coming few years. Eskom just energy transition office head Mandy Rambharos reported on Tuesday that the RFP could be released within the coming two months, once all outstanding governance matters had been settled both internally as well as with government.
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Upheaval is coming to South Africa over the shift away from coal

A photograph in the entrance hall at Komati Power Station shows the plant in better times, its nine generating units belching steam and smoke into the night sky. Those days are never coming back: Komati’s sole remaining working unit is facing closure within two years under plans by state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC to shut about a quarter of its coal-fired capacity by 2030. Next door at the Goedehoop mine, arrays of solar panels line the main access road, a sign of what may be to come for South Africa’s coal belt.
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Lifting distributed-generation cap ‘one of the easier decisions’ facing government – De …

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has described the plan, announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation (SONA) address, to lift the licence-exemption threshold for distributed-generation plants as “one of the easier decisions” government could make in the near-term to alleviate stress on the utility, which is having to resort to regular load-shedding to mitigate supply shortfalls. Asked during a virtual event hosted by the Free Market Foundation if there were any immediate changes that government could make to help address the crisis, De Ruyter argued that lifting the licence exemption to well above the current 1-MW threshold “could assist us in unlocking additional capacity quickly by leveraging private capital – that is probably one of the easier decisions, hopefully, that government can take”.
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Eskom, regulator says cracks in Koeberg containment structures not serious

The National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) has assured the public that the Koeberg nuclear power station, in Cape Town, is not discharging harmful radiation into the environment.

The NNR was responding to media coverage suggesting that the outer shell of the containment building at the power station were damaged and were not effectively protecting the environment from radiation.

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