Page 8 - AfrElec Week 25

AfrElec RENEWABLES AfrElec
RENEWABLES: OPIC to provide $87m for Lekela Power’s Egyptian wind farm
EGYPT
US development nance institution (DFI) Over- seas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has approved $87mn in nancing for Lekela Power’s 250-MW Gulf of Suez wind farm in Egypt
OPIC said that the $87mn would help to mobilise more than $250mn of private capital to nance the project.
“Energy security remains a critical barrier to sustainable growth in Egypt,” said OPIC Acting President and CEO David Bohigian.
“By diversifying the country’s energy sources, decreasing costs to consumers, and enhanc- ing power generation capacity, the project will expand electricity access in Egypt—creating eco- nomic opportunities that empower the Egyptian people.”
e nancing will support the construction, and operation of Lekela Power’s 250MW wind power plant near the Gulf of Suez, Egypt.
e plant will diversify Egypt’s energy mix, reduce electricity costs and lessen reliance on more costly energy resources.
Lekela Power currently has more than 1,300MW of wind farms at various stages of development and operational – including Gulf of Suez –in Egypt, Ghana, Senegal and South Africa.
It began construction of the 158.7MW Parc Eolien Taiba N’Diaye in Senegal in December 2018. In May, the project received its rst ship- ments of Vestas wind turbines to the construc- tion site. e project will eventually feature 46 Vestas turbines that can produce 3.45MW each.
In South Africa, it now operates 360MW of utility-scale capacity at Noupoort, Loeriesfon- tein 2 and Khobas, all of which were developed as part of the South African government’s Renew- able Energy Independent Power Producer Pro- curement Programme.
It also has 408.7MW under construction at two sites in South Africa and at Parc Eolien Taiba N’Diaye.
Finally, Lekela is working towards nancial closure for the 150MW Ayitepa wind project in Ghana. It already has a 25-year power purchase agreement in place with Electricity Company of Ghana, as well as a grid connection agreement with the Ghana Grid Company.
When complete by the end of 2019, the pro- ject is expected to generate 450TWh per year
Electricity blackouts have challenged Egypt, where more than one-third of installed power capacity is over 20 years old with availabil- ity and e ciency rates below common global benchmarks.
e wind farm, to be located 30km northwest of Ras Ghareb near the Gulf of Suez, is a part of the Egyptian government’s Build, Own, Operate (BOO) framework.
It will be executed on a turnkey basis by an engineering, procurement as well as construc- tion (EPC) contractor.
ree companies –Siemens Gamesa, Vestas and Senvion – have already made their bids for the project.
Construction should be completed by 2021, a er which the wind farm will produce 1,000GWh of power.
This will be enough for 350,000 Egyptian homes and will save 550,000 tonnes per year of CO2 emissions.
e 250MW project forms part of the Min- istry of Electricity and Renewable Energy’s ambition to produce 20% of country’s electricity supply from renewables by 2022, and over 42% by 2035.Renewables accounted for just 3.5TWh (1.75%) of Egypt’s total power output of 200TWh in 2018, according to BP data.™
POLICY
Reform in the offing for Eskom
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH African state-owned utility Eskom will be unbundled into separate generation, trans- mission and distribution operations in a bid to improve corporate transparency, while the gov- ernment is to pump ZR230bn ($16bn) into it to avoid nancial disaster.
In his State of the Nation address on June 20, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that, “Eskom is facing serious nancial, opera- tional and structural problems,” adding that they
were causing “grave concerns.”
He also confirmed that the government
would provide ZAR230bn ($16bn) over the next 10 years, although a signi cant portion of this would be paid much earlier than planned.
Current government plans called for $5bn over the three years, but Ramaphosa’s comment hint that the government will provide more cash in the short term.
Eskom needs a cash injection by October
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 25 26•June•2019