Page 12 - AfrElec Week 20

AfrElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
AfrElec
was GHC2.63bn.
On assumption of office, the New Patriotic
Party (NPP) ensured that it was current on all the bills incurred during its tenure, from 2017 to date. On the average, President Akufo- Addo has paid GHC2bn annually to cover its bills with the ECG,” he added.
With an average electricity bill payment
of GHC100mn per month, the Minister explained that the GHC500mn credit balance would cover government’s electricity bill from January to April this year.
TARIFFS
NERSAgivesthegreenlight toEskomtoincreasetariffs
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) has approved Eskom’s request to recover ZAR13.3bn as part of the power utility’s regulatory clearing account (RCA) application for the 2018/19 year.
The RCA application is a mechanism allowing Eskom to adjust for any over- or under-recovery of revenue for a particular year due to events which differ from initial assumptions made when the energy regulator granted tariffs.
The RCA balance will be recoverable from the standard tariff customers, local Special Pricing Arrangement (SPA) customers and international customers.
The Reasons for Decision (RfD) will follow once the applicable requirements, including, but not limited to, the confidential treatment of some information, have been finalised,
NERSA said in a statement.
The energy regulator also underlined that
it records that certain governance failures occurred in Eskom.
“However, at the time of this decision
and although some of the adjustments were effected in the decision, the extent of the governance failures or amounts associated therewith had not been fully quantified,” said NERSA in a statement.
GRID
Al-Kosair – Marsa Alam
powerlineprojectinEgypt
completed
The National Government of Egypt through the state’s Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) has completed the Al-Kosair – Marsa Alam power line project connecting Marsa Alam, a resort town on the Red Sea, to the national electricity grid for the first time.
This was revealed by Mohamed Shaker, the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energies who also mentioned that tests for the operation of the 220kV, 150km long Al-Kosair – Marsa Alam power line are underway.
The Al-Kosair – Marsa Alam power line project features two mobile transformer stations in Marsa Alam with a voltage of 220/22/22kV and a capacity of 60MVA per unit.
The minister said that the Al-Kosair – Marsa Alam power line is a pilot phase and
that the government intends to connect the entire region of the southeast coast of the Red Sea from Al-Kosair, through Marsa Alam to El Quseir and Berenice to the national grid.
The entire project according to Shaker costs approximately EGP 970m and it requires a dual-circuit antenna line with a voltage of 220 kV at 295 km in length and four mobile units of 220/22/22 kV with a capacity of 60 MVA per unit, two installed in Marsa Alam and the other two in Berenice.
The Al-Kosair – Marsa Alam power
line took EETC, in cooperation with Giza Systems and EX EGEMAC plus other major specialised companies in the field, about six months to complete.
GRID
Nelsap gains funds from AfDB
The Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Programme (NELSAP) has received funds from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to conduct an updated feasibility study of the 352.2km Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)-Uganda power interconnection.
The updated feasibility covers an engineering design, tender documents preparation, environmental, social impact assessment (ESIA) and resettlement action plan (RAP) for the Congo (Beni-Bunia- Butembo)-Uganda (Nkenda) power interconnection.
NELSAP Knowledge Management Officer Juliet Nakasagga unveiled to the ‘Daily
News’ that the funds were for updating the feasibility study of the 352.2km of an overhead transmission line (OHTL) at 220KV (400kV) to connect the Eastern part of DRC to the Uganda power grid.
The Congo portion of the interconnector line will be 279.7km, while Uganda’s portion will be 72.5km and will include four substations (Beni, Bunia and Butembo in DRC and at Nkenda in Uganda) together with telecommunication systems and rural electrification in DRC sections.
AfDB funds under a Nepad-IPPF window to a tune of $0.925mn was availed to NELSAP in March this year and the study is expected to run for 14 months.
The feasibility study will be conducted by NELSAP-CU in consultation with Société Nationale d’Electricité (SNEL) of the DRC and Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL).
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Week 20 21•May•2020