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Eskom unbundling fails to cut solvency risk, Futuregrowth says

Futuregrowth Asset Management said that despite efforts to make South Africa’s Eskom Holdings profitable, including a process of unbundling its divisions into separate entities, “the core problem of debt” has yet to be addressed. The utility that reported a fourth straight full-year loss on Aug. 31 has very high finance costs on a debt pile of about R400-billion. Eskom expects to separate its transmission division from the utility by the end of the year, with generation and distribution units to follow in 2022.
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Senegal starts clock on $550m US grant to boost power supply

Senegal has completed reforms that will unlock a five-year grant of $550-million from the United States that will help build high-voltage power transmission lines and substations to boost access to electricity. The grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the U.S. government’s main development fund, will enable Senegal to address critical problems in the power sector, Mahmoud Bah, acting chief executive officer of the MCC, told Reuters.
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New Trade idea for South Africa is debt relief for climate goals

Politicians and academics are turning their attention to a new trade pitch for South Africa: debt relief in exchange for progress toward global climate goals. The debt-for-climate concept, which was floated by International Monetary Fund MD Kristalina Georgieva in April, has been picked up by South African Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo and the South African Communist Party, which is part of the country’s ruling coalition. The IMF plans to raise the idea at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November.
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South Africa’s green hydrogen ‘first mover’ opportunity based on three structural advantages

South Africa has three favourable structural characteristics that potentially give it a “first mover advantage” to become a global green-hydrogen leader, Sasol CEO Fleetwood Grobler argued in his address during a ‘Hydrogen Economy Discussion’ facilitated by well-known mining personality Bernard Swanepoel. The first advantage relates to South Africa’s and Southern Africa’s large-scale, high-quality renewable-energy potential.
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Ukrainian, US companies enter agreement to build new nuclear reactor

Ukrainian nuclear energy company Energoatom has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with US nuclear manufacturing company Westinghouse, for the completion of the former’s Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant (NPP) unit 4, using the latter’s AP1000 reactor technology, World Nuclear News has reported. Khmelnitsky 4 was originally intended to be a Russian-technology VVER design but its construction was halted when it was only 28% complete. Construction of the new unit would be significantly accelerated by the fact that major AP1000 reactor components had already been built and were currently stored in the US, in a facility in the state of South Carolina. These components have been inspected by a delegation from Energoatom, including its acting director (head), Petro Kotin.
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Absa achieves compliance with new building energy performance requirements

Financial services provider Absa is the first bank to achieve compliance with the country’s new building energy performance regulations, the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) reports. In December 2020, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) gazetted ‘Regulations for the Mandatory Display and Submission of Energy Performance Certificates for Buildings’.
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One-of-a-kind electricity forum to hold inaugural event this month

The inaugural Electricity Forum will be held on September 28 and 30 and will kick off a multi-stakeholder drive to turn the country’s multiple power challenges into opportunities to spur growth, investment and jobs. The initiative is being spearheaded by the Manufacturing Circle, which has partnered with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), to bring to fruition the one-of-a-kind initiative to boost manufacturing by catalysing the initiatives required to tackle the country’s crippling electricity constraints.
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World’s largest plant capturing carbon from air starts in Iceland

The world’s largest plant that sucks carbon dioxide directly from the air and deposits it underground is due to start operating on Wednesday, the company behind the nascent green technology said. Swiss start-up Climeworks, which specialises in capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air, has partnered with Icelandic carbon storage firm Carbfix to develop a plant that sucks out up to 4 000 t/y of carbon dioxide (CO2).
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Masondo raises R146bn South Africa debt forgiveness

David Masondo, South Africa’s deputy finance minister, suggested that investors forgive about R146-billion of sovereign debt in exchange for the national power utility meeting climate targets. In order to transition from the use of coal to generate electricity to renewable energy Eskom Holdings will need to borrow about R400-billion, equal to its current debt, and will need a “complementary transaction” to achieve that, he said in a speech on Tuesday.
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South Africa’s updated NDC climate pledge to be released ‘very soon’

Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy reported on Tuesday that South Africa’s revised Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which is to be deposited with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change later this year, is close to being finalised and will be presented to lawmakers “very soon”. In a briefing of the Portfolio Committee on Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, on the country’s preparations ahead of the COP26 climate negotiations scheduled for Glasgow, Scotland, in early November, Creecy reported that her department was in the process of synthesising the comments received during the public comment period, including those made by the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC).
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