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President Hakainde Hichilema has sworn in Peter Kapala as Zambia’s Minister of Electricity and Makozo Chikote as Minister of Petroleum, splitting the former Ministry of Energy in two a week before the Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Projects Summit opens in Livingstone, and giving the power sector a ministry of its own.

ECOWAS energy ministers meeting in Accra on 22 October adopted a regional directive on battery energy storage, setting a common framework for storage on West Africa’s grids, as Ghana’s energy minister, John Abdulai Jinapor, told them his country is procuring a 200MW battery system and a 200MWp solar plant to charge it.

Helen Zulu, Regional Director for Southern Africa at Ignite Energy Access, tells ENN that over 40% of its solar home systems now sell with an appliance, and sets out the changes she wants from regulators in Zambia and Zimbabwe, from proportionate licensing to taxes that fall due as customers pay.

South Africa’s Independent Power Producer Office is still evaluating bids from the first gas-to-power round, three weeks after Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa determined that 5,000MW of new gas generation and 4,600MW of battery storage should be procured, and the briefing he had set for today on the programme was postponed.

Naomi Ndele, Head of MSME Banking at KCB Bank, writing for ENN on how clean energy loans launched in 2022 have taken LPG cooking into 594 basic learning institutions and 38 tertiary institutions, and why she says the programme has no life span while Kenya works towards universal clean cooking by 2030.

BluEnergy, the electricity business of JSE-listed Blu Label Unlimited, and its development partner IBS Crafts have broken ground on a 25.6MW solar plant costing R360 million at the Springs Fresh Produce Market, and the plant will sell its power to the City of Ekurhuleni under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

The African Development Bank has approved a $503.75 million loan for Botswana’s Economic Competitiveness and Transformation Support Programme, co-financed with $170 million from the OPEC Fund, tying reforms to a competitive renewable energy auction and a costed plan to bring every household onto electricity by 2030.

ENN’s Women’s Voices series asks women making the decisions in Nigerian energy and mining the same three questions. Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu, Director-General of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), opens it, telling ENN why investors should look to Nigeria’s states and why women should never lead “from a position of limitation”.

The Mozambican government plans to invest about $126m in a solar plant to supply mining companies in Gaza Province, according to the state news agency AIM, reporting remarks by the governor, Alfeu Cuna, in Nacala. The province has heavy mineral sands at Chibuto and limestone at Mabalane, where processing is planned.

Eni has completed the sale of Agip Energy and Natural Resources, the subsidiary holding its 5% share of the onshore Renaissance joint venture, to Apex Global Energy, a company wholly owned by Sterling Oil Exploration and Energy Production Company. Eni stays in Nigeria through deep offshore assets and Nigeria LNG.