Page 11 - AfrElec Week 05

AfrElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
AfrElec
Absa economists expect in ation to remain well contained at around 4.1% in 2019, rising to 4.4% in 2020, with traditional upside pressures like administered prices and a drought being quashed by demand weakness.
EXPORTS
Namibia’s Arandis
Power Offers Eskom 120
Megawatts
Namibia’s independent power producer Arandis Power has shown strong interest in entering the South African power market by o ering the country’s state-owned power utility Eskom 120MW.
e o er to aid Eskom in power generation follows South Africa’s Request for Information (RFI) made by its Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, in accord with the country’s “Risk Mitigation Power Procurement Program.”
As envisaged by the 2019 Integrated Resources Plan (IRP), the Program serves to alleviate current supply constraints in the short to medium-term future. Issued in December, the RFI evaluates the options for generating electricity power between 2,000 and 3,000 MW that can be connected to the grid in the shortest possible time and at minimum cost.
Arandis Power’s Managing Director Ezio Vernetti said that the 120 MW of exible power generation delivered by the company falls within the framework of the RFI.
“Namibia’s electricity regulatory authority, the Electricity Control Board (ECB), has shown vision and leadership in the Southern African Power Pool by opening up the local market and the national grid to Independent Power Producers for the generation and trading of electricity, both locally and internationally,” said Vernetti.
e Arandis Power project is fully developed and ready to be implemented,
and could take place within four months of signing a power purchase agreement with Eskom or any other o -taker in the Southern African Power Pool.
BILLING
Ethiopian Electric Utility unveils new SAP system to
streamline billing
Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) has o cially inaugurated its new SAP ERP system at its primary data centre located in Addis Ababa.
e ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by, State Minister of the Energy Sector
within the Ministry of Water, Irrigation
and Electricity for Ethiopia Dr Frehiwot Woldehanna, as well as several other dignitaries and senior executives including .
EEU operates in a highly complex environment and serves customers in cities across all eleven regional states.
It faced challenges in delivering services e ciently while also maintaining full visibility and accountability across all its systems. SAP ERP and SAP CRM were selected by EEU to streamline processes and provide real-time visibility.
e new system also enables EEU to quickly identify any issues and resolve them promptly, to ensure top-class customer support.
“SAP is committed to helping companies run better,” said Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director for SAP Central Africa. In his address at the opening event, he spoke about the need for partnership and working together across the private and public sector.
“By smartly leveraging technology, EEU
is taking steps to become an intelligent enterprise, able to thrive in the digital age and able to o er its valued customers an enhanced customer experience.
“We look forward to our ongoing partnership to ensure EEU remains not only the pride of Ethiopia but a role model for other organizations contributing to economic growth in Ethiopia and the Continent.”
GENERATION
Karpowership offers to bail out Eskom
Karpowership, One of the world’s largest powership rms, has submitted a proposal
to South Africa. is new plan seeks to e ectively “plug” the power de cit the country is facing, upwards of 3,000MW
“We have made a submission to the department as of last Friday and they received information on what is possible, where and how we would look to do it”, says Patrick O’Driscoll, Karpowership’s director of Global Sales, Reuters reported.
He continues to say that several injection points have already been identi ed by the company in order to pump the grid with power.
Karpowership is currently providing about 4,100MW of electricity to nations in the Middle East, Asia, eight African nations and even Cuba. is massive undertaking is conducted by its eet of 25 powerships. An excess of 4,400MW worth of new ships is also in plans to be constructed at their Turkey shipyard.
Each ship can supply a country’s power grid a range of power options from 30MW to up to and around 600MW and for as long as they are contracted. O’Driscoll also says “speed of delivery” is their most important focus, and that they had recently operated
a 120MW contract in Senegal within nine weeks.
Most importantly for the cash-strapped Eskom, is that these powerships can run on many di erent fuels, the usual being natural gas and even lique ed natural gas which is cheaper than diesel – the source of fuel that Eskom spends millions of dollars annually to supply.
“I can give guarantees and assurances that Karpowership will be signi cantly less,
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