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Yellow Door Energy has started building the 49MWp Lion Thorn Solar Park at Leeudoringstad in North West, with PowerChina as EPC contractor and Nedbank CIB as lender. It is the company’s second solar park in the town contracted to wheel power to the cement producer PPC and the licensed trader POWERX.

Angola wants Southern African governments to help finance the 200,000 barrel-a-day Lobito refinery, due to produce its first fuel in December 2027. Zambia has committed to a 26% stake and Botswana has been offered equity. Sonangol says it will keep at least 51% as it looks for $4.8bn to fund the next phase.

AIKO will supply the solar modules for three Infinity Power projects in South Africa totalling 773.5MWp, all awarded in the seventh bid window of the country’s renewable energy procurement programme. It is the companies’ third collaboration in Africa after two in Egypt, and takes their joint portfolio past 2GWp.

Eskom has opened a request for qualification to find co-development and co-investment partners for up to 6GW of renewable generation and battery storage, the first phase of its new utility-scale renewables business. Eskom Green, being incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary, will contribute at least 2GW of solar and 1GW of batteries.

The 1,443km East African Crude Oil Pipeline will be ready to receive crude by mid-December, Ugandan officials say, with first commercial oil from the Tilenga and Kingfisher fields now expected before the end of June 2027. The Petroleum Authority of Uganda links the change to disrupted equipment shipments from the Middle East.

More than £2m from the UK’s ZE-Gen Scale-up Fund will back ten projects in eight African countries designed to cut reliance on diesel generators. In Nigeria, Farm Warehouse will install 100 solar-powered cold storage systems in major markets, and KAMIM Technologies will build four solar-powered agricultural hubs.

Zambia has reached its 2026 target of 1,000MW of solar, with 1,027MW now installed, the government told the Energy Forum for Africa in Lusaka. At the same forum, Axian signed a power purchase agreement with Africa GreenCo for the 200MW Kudu plant, whose output will be sold across the Southern African Power Pool.

Zimbabwe is replacing unsolicited power project bids with competitive tendering, and the framework behind it is being built with World Bank technical assistance covering transaction advisers, model bidding documents and a pilot procurement of around 370MW across the Ministry, ZETDC and the regulator.

The Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority has finalised the technical marketing architecture for its 2026 offshore licensing round, offering global explorers a dense subsurface data package across the Liberia and Harper basins ahead of the upcoming infrastructure deal rooms in Cape Town.