African Review

Botswana's first utility-scale solar plant has its financing, and the electricity is destined for the regional market rather than the domestic one. Rand Merchant Bank underwrote the package on a pure market view into SAPP, where the regional deficit sits at around 4,200MW and is concentrated in Zambia and the DRC.

The 150MW Quipungo project in Huila province was the first site signed under Project Royal Sable, in an agreement with the state transmission company in January. The remaining two sites have no offtake in place. Completed, the programme would reach around 300,000 homes. Masdar has contracted one of the three sites in Project Royal Sable, […]

ESCOM switched on a 20MW and 40 megawatt hour system in Lilongwe in July, funded by a US$20 million grant. The utility had been curtailing renewable generation it had already produced and running diesel instead. William Kayipa says the arithmetic changes from here.

The Geothermal Development Company is readying a public-private partnership for the Paka field, with production slated to begin by 2028. Draft regulations published last year would introduce a royalty on geothermal steam and require community benefit-sharing in every licence application.

Scatec signed a 25-year dollar-denominated agreement with Egypt's transmission company in January covering 1.95GW of solar and 3.9GWh of batteries. Capital expenditure, engineering scope and financing structure are still undisclosed. The company expects to close in the second half of this year.

The line was designed to relieve a central corridor running through Zimbabwe that carries most of Southern Africa's traded power. Initiated in 2008 and targeting an initial 300MW transfer, it remains at consultancy stage while the congestion it was meant to solve has grown.

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.