Page 13 - AfrElec Week 05 2023
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AfrElec RENEWABLES AfrElec
Renewvia, Okapi Green Energy to deliver
power to Kenya refugee camp
KENYA SOLAR energy microgrid developer Renewvia phase connection last year.
has partnered with Okapi Green Energy (Okapi) Power will be exclusively supplied by OkRene
Ltd to form a joint venture to deliver clean and Energy through a 20-year licence. The project is
affordable electricity to Kenya’s second-largest expected to take one year to complete.
refugee camp, Kakuma. “The majority of our community, to date,
Via the joint venture, OkRene Energy, they has had to rely on expensive, unstable and
will design, finance, instal and operate a scala- unreliable sources of power. Our first phase
ble, innovative solar minigrid system, expanding saw us initiate the first step towards change,
access to power from 200 people to up to 15,000 by connecting 1% of the 200,000 residents,”
living within Kakuma. Hamisi said.
Okapi was established in 2018 to help bring “Energy is one of the key engines for the eco-
electrification to the refugee camp by resident nomic growth of any society as it forms the basic
Vasco Hamisi, a Congolese who arrived there in blocks on which socio-economic development
2010. can be established.
The United States African Development “Providing access to energy for refugees is a
Foundation (USADF), an independent US critical enabler for basic and essential services.
government agency, partially funded the first This next phase will be transformational.”
PERFORMANCE
Coal exports from SA’s Richards Bay
Terminal hit 30-year low in 2022
SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH Africa’s Richards Bay Coal Terminal
(RBCT) exported 50mn tonnes of the fossil fuel
in 2022, the lowest level in 30 years, according to
Business Report, a local daily.
Alan Waller, chief executive officer of the
91mn tonne per year capacity facility, said oper-
ations were hampered by the theft of cables,
wagon derailments and a prolonged strike by
workers at a rail utility which moves the bulk of
the commodity to Richards Bay.
RBCT had an annual target of 70mn tonnes
but ended up handling 50.43mn tonnes, the the strike and derailments,” Waller said.
paper reported on Friday, January 27, lower than “Those hurt us a lot, as well as the continu-
the 58mn tonnes it moved in 2021. ation of the failure of some of the locomotives
The biggest factor affecting the terminal’s per- and the increased challenge posed to Transnet.”
formance, he explained, were low volumes. Rising coal demand in Europe after it
“And intrinsically linked to that is the abil- restricted Russian cargoes over Moscow’s war
ity to get the [coal] to the port,” he added. “The on Ukraine since February 2022 saw South
terminal, which is owned by South Africa’s larg- African exports to the bloc spiking by 700% but
est coal producers, is not designed to take road challenges at Transnet meant RBCT still failed to
trucks, and even if it were, the number of trucks take full advantage.
required to compensate for undelivered rail vol- Waller said RBCT forecasts to export 60mn
umes is pretty much unthinkable.” tonnes of coal in 2023.
A 22-day strike by Transnet workers and “If I look at the commitments from the par-
derailments cost RBCT about 5mn tonnes in ties, it is a possibility,” he said according to Busi-
lost rail cargoes and exports. ness Report.
“Unfortunately, it was a regression through “It could be a stretch, but I think we could
the year, largely impacted in the last quarter by achieve 60mn tonnes.”
Week 05 01•February•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P13
