Page 12 - AfrElec Week 43

AfrElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
AfrElec
GAS-FIRED GENERATION
Sound Energy to supply
Morocco’s electricity utility
with gas
UK upstream Morocco-focused Sound Energy inked a gas supply deal with Morocco’s ONEE, state-owned power company.
Under this preliminary agreement, Sound Energy will commercialise the gas found in the Tendrara permit where it holds 47.5%, alongside Schlumberger, which has a 27.5% direct interest and the state’s hydrocarbons office ONHYM with 25%.
The East Morocco operation comprises three areas – Tendrara, Greater Tendrara and the Anoual Permit.
“Whilst clearly disappointed with the outcome of the recent well test at TE-10, the team and I are encouraged to have delivered gas to surface from another TAGI discovery and remain confident in the potential of our Eastern Morocco basin,” the company CEO said.
Last May, following disappointing drilling results on the Tendrara concession, Sound said it was putting its eastern Moroccan assets for sale, with Rothschild & Co. advising. While the TE-10 well did not achieve commercial flow rates, the TE-5 discovery remains economically viable.
HYDRO
Congo’s $14bn dam
project threatened by
disagreements
Serious disagreements between groups of Spanish and Chinese developers that want to build a 11GW hydropower plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo may scuttle
plans for the $14bn project, according to a report. The Inga III dam would be the biggest hydroelectric power station on Africa’s second-longest river and provide much- needed electricity to Congo and other nations, including South Africa. After the Congolese government in 2017 asked two competing groups — one Chinese, one Spanish — to merge, the partners submitted a joint proposal in November last year.
However, they were unable to agree on the project’s development and the percentage of each party’s share, the main company
in the Chinese consortium, China Three Gorges Corp., said in a Sept. 20 letter to Bruno Kapandji, the head of Congo’s Agency for the Development and Promotion of the Grand Inga Project, or ADPI. The letter
was published in a report from New York University’s Congo Research Group and Belgium-based advocacy organisation Resource Matters.
Inga III is part of a long-delayed plan known as Grand Inga that’s eventually intended to harness as much as 40,000 megawatts of power from the Congo River. Management of the project was criticised under former President Joseph Kabila for its lack of transparency. In July 2016, the World Bank halted a $73mn grant for environmental and social studies after Kabila put the Inga agency under his direct control.
Two dams built on the same stretch of the Congo River more than three decades ago, Inga I and Inga II, still provide most of the nation’s power.
The near-collapse of the current group
of developers provides an opportunity for Kabila’s successor, Felix Tshisekedi, “to completely re-open the Inga III dossier, both in terms of its own capacity as well as that of its investors,” the Congo Research Group and Resource Matters said in the report.
“This ambitious project must be revisited to ensure that the Congolese population benefits from it,” they said.
RENEWABLES
ACWA Power to build 200MW PV plant in Egypt
Saudi Arabian energy and water company ACWA Power has signed a Power Purchase Agreement with the Egyptian government to develop, finance, construct and operate the 200MW Kom Ombo photovoltaic plant.
Construction is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2021, and once operational, the plant will provide the power to 130,000 households.
The construction and development of new PV plants in Egypt bolsters the efforts of the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy to increase the overall capacity of renewable energy to 20 per cent by the year 2020.
Dr Mohamed Shaker, Egypt’s Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy said: “The signing of today’s project is a crucial building block that contributes to the Egyptian government’s vision – which aims to upscale sustainable energy security by moulding
a balanced energy mix...We are keen to leverage renewable energy sources through transparent competitive procurement, which will cater to the country’s current clean energy needs while simultaneously safeguarding our future”.
“The Egyptian government has long recognised renewable energy as a safe and secure source of power to reliably provide electricity to its citizens while advancing their efforts in reducing carbon emissions. The Kom Ombo project that we are embarking upon today is a very strong testament to ACWA Power’s commitment to contribute to this mission,” said Paddy Padmanathan, CEO of ACWA Power.
ACWA Power to develop
250MW of solar projects in
Ethiopia
Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power has won two 125 MW solar projects in Ethiopia in the country’s first round of solar programme under Public- Private Partnership (PPP).
The projects will be located in Dicheto, in the Afar region, and Gad, in the Somali region of the country.
The projects which were tendered in April 2019 are estimated to power 750,000 homes and offset 320,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, according to a press release issued by the company.
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Week 43 30•October•2019