Page 6 - AfrElec Week 37

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African grids to be connected by 2022
AFRICA
THE two separate regional cross-border power grids in eastern and southern Africa are set to be joined by 2022, after years of delays, when a number of interconnectors between Kenya, Ethi- opia, Tanzania and Uganda are completed.
Joining the separate grids of the two regions has long been held to be one solution to pro- viding reliable power supplies to industrial and domestic customers in the region.The new lines aim to connect the two systems and to cut tariffs, reduce emissions and boost economic growth.
They are being supported by western-leaning MDMs such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), as well as the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA).
The Kenya-Ethiopia link is budgeted to cost $1.26bn, most of which is coming from the AfDB. A mixture of Chinese and Indian con- tractors is building the line.
“In the next two to three years, we will have interconnections with several neighbouring countries in the region,” Joseph Njoroge, the principal secretary at the Kenyan Energy Minis- try, said on September 17, Reuters reported.
“Thereafter, we will be able to come up with a configuration that enhances demand in terms of the region.”
Current plans call for a 500-kV line from Kenya to Ethiopia, while 400-kV lines will run
from Kenya to Uganda (and on to Rwanda and Burundi) and Kenya to Tanzania.
Crucially, the Kenya-Tanzania line will extend to Zambia, Njoroge said, linking East African networks up with South Africa, Zam- bia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This will allow cross-border trading in electricity to take place, enabling countries to tap in to supplies from their neighbours in times of drought or fuel problems, while also introducing more grid resilience.
Yet despite Njoroge’s positive news, he admit- ted that the current target of 2022 was the result of difficulties in land acquisitions in some areas. The original target dates had been 2017 for Ethi- opia-Kenya, 2016 for Kenya-Uganda and 2018 for the Kenya-Tanzania line.
The new links come at a time when power demand is growing in East Africa as the econ- omy expands. On the other hand, there is some theoretical excess capacity in the system, which is often underused because of fuel supply problems and poor maintenance. East Africa boasts new utility-scale renewables projects such as Kenya’s 310-MW Lake Turkana wind farm and the 600- MW Karuma hydro project in Uganda.
Tanzania is building new gas-fired capacity, while Ethiopia is looking to export power from its 6,450-MW Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project.™
POLICY
Draft law awards SA’s government a 10% stake in new projects
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy hopes to revive a proposal to award an equity stake in every new oil and gas project to the government at no cost.
Representatives of the department told legis- lators last week that they were drawing up a new law that would set a 10% stake aside for the state. The draft legislation provides for the government to acquire this equity and retain the right to 10% of future production at no charge, said Ntokozo Ngcwabe, the department’s deputy director-gen- eral. Ngcwabe stressed that the department had not yet finalised the proposed law. He stated, though, that the government intended to sub- mit the draft to Parliament in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy drew up a similar proposal several years ago, saying it hoped to ensure the South African government’s right to take a 20% stake in each project at no charge. But it suspended efforts to secure approval for the initiative, which would
also have given the state the right to acquire additional equity, in 2015. This development discouraged some investors, including Royal Dutch Shell, which surrendered its exploration licence for an offshore block in the Orange Basin in 2017. Even so, other investors have persisted. For example, Total (France) revealed in February 2019 that it had discovered sizeable reserves of natural gas at Brulpadda, a field within the off- shore Block 11B/12B.
According to Patrick Pouyanne, the com- pany’s CEO, the field could contain as much as 1bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in gas and condensate.
Total’s discovery inspired the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to revisit its pre- vious efforts to reserve a stake in new projects for the government. This move seems timely, given that the French company’s success has spurred Shell to join Anadarko Petroleum (US) in the exploration of several licence areas near Block 11B/12B.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 37 18•September•2019