Page 7 - AfrElec Week 07

AfrElec H Y D R O AfrElec
Chinese aim for 840MW of hydro in Uganda
UGANDA
CHINESE interests have applied for a licence to build a $1.4bn hydropower plant (HPP) in Uganda.
The 840-MW Ayago HPP would be the larg- est in the country and extend current capacity by 40%, Reuters reported.
PowerChina International Group Ltd (PIGL) aims to build the Ayago HPP on the River Nile between Lakes Kyoga and Albert.
The plans would be located downstream from the 600-MW Karuma dam, which is currently being built by China’s Synohydro and is due for completion in 2020. Uganda regulators said that they would issue a decision on the licence in April. PIGL said in its submission that it would fund the 840-MW plant through a 25%:75% mixture of equity and debt.
Uganda has been trying to increase private investment in energy, and has committed to loans from China and other sources to help boost power production to meet fast-growing demand.
The government has abolished subsidies and introduced a tariff-setting system that is bench- marked on movements in key parameters such as inflation, foreign exchange and oil prices.
Meanwhile, Uganda is one of a number of
African countries increasing their exposure to Chinese investment.
A recent study from the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that Chinese construc- tion companies would add 9 GW to African power capacity between 2014 and 2024, of which 4.5 GW are currently still being built.
Of this, 5,764 MW will be hydro, 811 MW coal, 988 MW gas and 370 MW oil. Just 1,178 MW will be renewables.
Zambia is using Chinese building contractors to construct the most capacity between 2014 and 2024, followed by Nigeria, Angola, Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire. These five make up roughly half of the IEA’s total of 9 GW.
Hydro is a major Chinese business. Zambia’s 750-MW Kafue Gorge project is set to be com- pleted in 2020, while the Chinese are building the 2,160-MW Cacula dam in Angola and the 3,048- MW Mambila dam in Nigeria.
In Uganda, China is also financing transport projects such as the expansion of Entebbe Inter- national Airport. Uganda is also seeking funding for the construction of a standard gauge railway to link the landlocked country to the Kenyan sea- port of Mombasa.™
RENEWABLES
African wind expansion stalls in 2019, but fast growth is forecast
AFRICA
UTILITY-SCALE wind additions in Africa and the Middle East dipped by 7% in 2019 to 894 MW, although the market is set to bounce back in the next five years.
The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said that although the figures were disappoint- ing, more and more countries were overcoming such common barriers to wind expansion.
Ben Backwell, CEO of GWEC, said: “Chal- lenges such as policy and power market frame- works, transmission infrastructure bottlenecks and off-taker risk must be overcome in order for Africa and the Middle East to take full advantage of their wind potential.”
GWEC forecast that 10.7 GW of utility-scale wind energy would be installed between 2020 and 2024, an increase of 167% on the current market. The best-performing countries in the region in 2019 included: Egypt (262 MW); Morocco (216 MW); Jordan (190 MW) and Ethiopia (120 MW).
By 2024, South Africa is set to be the fastest growing country, with an additional 3.3 GW of energycapacityinstalledby2024.Thisincludes
over 1.3 GW of Bid Window 4 projects currently under construction.
It also includes future tenders that will take place under the new 2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which foresees the installation of 14.4 GW of wind capacity from 2022 to 2030 in the country.
The GWEC said that southern Africa alone offered 18 GW of wind potential in emerging markets such as Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia and Mozambique.
In North Africa and the Middle East, GWEC foresees a major acceleration in growth, as a maturing project pipeline will come into place in 2020 to support an increase in wind power capacity. GWEC forecasts that by 2024 the mar- ket leader will be Egypt (1.8 GW), followed by Morocco (1.2 GW) and Saudi Arabia (1.2 GW).
Jon Lezamiz, chair of GWEC’s Africa Task Force, said: “In those countries with proper frameworks and stable bankable pipelines, we are already seeing a local supply chain being developed... We see many exciting develop- mentsintheregion.”™
Week 07 20•February•2020 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P7