aef 2024 Post-Show Report

New pledges of $900 million were announced on 9 July at a virtual meeting of the co-chairs, after the Nairobi summit was postponed. A new programme responds to Strait of Hormuz disruption that the IEA says affected 30 per cent of globally traded LPG.

President Cyril Ramaphosa officiates at Bethal in Mpumalanga today as the first 155MW phase of Ummbila Emoyeni begins commercial supply. Standard Bank and RMB financed the R4.8 billion phase, the opening stage of a build planned to pass 900MW across seven phases.

Freetown launched a five-year plan in May covering lithium, graphite, cobalt and rare earths, as mineral exports climbed to $1.3 billion. Julius Daniel Mattai, who chairs the African Diamond Producers Association this year, wants African governments negotiating as a bloc rather than one at a time.

Exxaro will add a 100MW battery and a second phase at Lephalale, as Cennergi targets almost 1,000MW of renewables by the end of 2027 and 1,600MW by 2030.

A seven-year Green Climate Fund programme will reach 225,000 people in Mozambique through competitively procured solar mini-grids and results-based payments for productive-use equipment.

A US$292 million grant is funding the Zambian section of the line that joins the Southern African Power Pool to its East African counterpart. Work on the Tanzanian side was due to finish this year. Once live, Zambia can import in a dry year and export in a wet one.

David Arinze of the Energy Transition Challenge Fund, who also leads the Nigeria Economic Summit Group's Renewable Energy Thematic Working Group, on why the figure everyone quotes is misread, what a solar factory importing its own glass reveals about Nigerian manufacturing, and where catalytic capital stops working.

Harare ended subsidised grid tariffs for the sector and required smelters to build their own generation, primarily renewable. Smelting draws 3,500 to 4,000 kilowatt hours a tonne. The requirement arrives alongside a raw mineral export ban that asks the same companies to process more, not less.