Page 12 - AfrElec Week 03

AfrElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
AfrElec
(TCN) confirmed the incident in a statement on its Twitter page reporting a “system disturbance” which occurred at about 12.34 pm local time affecting some parts of the country.
Later on the same day, at 1:10 pm, TCN noted that “supply was restored to Abuja and most parts of the affected areas”, ensuring that the company is currently working to completely restore and stabilise the nation’s grid.
Ikeja Electric, Nigeria’s largest distribution network also confirmed the grid’s collapse in a statement on its Twitter account and reported a subsequent blackout, which occurred at 2.15 pm after the previous incident:
The final statement released by TCN on
17 January brought more clarity, explaining that there was only a “partial collapse of
the system, as the grid was still supplying Port-Harcourt, Aba, Omoku, Yenegoa, Afam among others, through Afam 4, River IPP and Omoku Power Stations.
“Efforts immediately commenced to synchronise other parts of the network,
but as restoration reached advanced stage, the situation suddenly degenerated into a collapse of the nation’s grid,” the transmission company said.
It concluded that as Nigeria still operates with zero spinning reserve, system inabilities like that “cannot be totally avoided”.
GAS-FIRED GENERATION
AIIM invests in Nigerian gas
assets Accugas and Seven
Uquo Gas Ltd
African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) has acquired minority interests in gas assets in Nigeria majority-owned by Savannah Petroleum.
These comprise a 20% stake in Seven Uquo Gas Ltd, the entity that holds a
40% participating interest and a 100% gas economic interest in the Uquo gas field located in South-East Nigeria and a further 20% stake in Accugas, the integrated processing and distribution infrastructure for Uquo gas. AIIM purchased the interests from Savannah Petroleum, which owns the remaining 80% of each company.
AIIM, one of Africa’s largest and most experienced infrastructure-focused private equity fund managers and a member
of Old Mutual Alternative Investments (OMAI), invested $54mn of equity into the transaction through its flagship pan-African
infrastructure fund, AIIF3.
Accugas has a 200mn cubic foot (5.7mn
cubic metre) per day gas processing capacity plant and a pipeline network of over 250 km. The investments will enable the company
to continue to support critical power plants that generate more than 10% of Nigeria’s on-grid power supply as well as other leading industrial off-takers.
AIIM’s West African Director Olusola Lawson, said: “This deal firmly supports AIIF3’s investment strategy, which targets significant influence investments across the power, transport and midstream energy sectors - three focus verticals across sub- Saharan Africa where AIIM sees the greatest disconnect between the demand for critical infrastructure and available capital for these projects. In Nigeria, estimated peak energy demand is estimated to be over 20,000 MW, but this is only met with less than 5,000 MW of peak supply.
This highlights the power demand gap
on the national grid, which is partially due
to the unavailability of gas to some of the existing generation plants. AIIM’s investments will help to bridge this gap, creating positive impact outcomes for businesses, communities and individuals on the ground.” Andrew Knott, CEO of ++Savannah Petroleum, said: “We are very pleased to be working with AIIM, as they have an impressive track record in the African power sector. The gas-to- power sector in West Africa is primed for considerable growth over the coming years, so we believe that both Accugas and Uquo offer investors exposure to a fast-growing economy in need of additional power supplies. Both AIIM and Savannah are fully aligned and remain focused on delivering sizeable growth and cash flows at these high-margin assets.” AIIM
SOLAR
Two consider Egypt’s West Nile solar project
As part of its policy to produce 20% of Egypt’s electricity from renewable sources
by 2022, the government plans to build a solar photovoltaic plant in West Nile. For this project, two companies have been selected t carry out a consultancy contract.
The alliance consists of the Egyptian company Firnas Shuman and Ramboll, a group of engineering consulting firms based in Copenhagen. The two companies were selected following a call for tenders in which several companies took part. The call for expressions of interest was launched by all the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) shortlisted for the implementation of this solar photovoltaic project.
Firnas Shuman and Ramboll are now responsible for carrying out field studies. This involves the preparation of technical requirements; the examination of technical and financial offers submitted in cooperation with officials of the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) and the evaluation for the preparation of the shortlist of winning companies.
The IPPs competing for this solar project will share equally the total cost of the contract obtained by the Firnas Shuman-Ramboll alliance. In return, each IPP will receive the results of the consultant’s study. At present, there are very few details about this West Nile solar project.
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Week 03 23•January•2020