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US to fund solar power project in Nigeria
SOUTH AFRICA
NIGERIAN authorities will ask the US Export-Import Bank to fund a solar power project, developer Sun Africa LLC has told Bloomberg.
According to the New York-based outlet, which spoke via email to Sun Africa CEO Adam Cortese, the finance ministry is expected within the next 60 days to send a “final commitment application” to the bank. The US Export-Import Bank is a government-run export credit agency, based in Washington, DC.
Sun Africa, which is based in Miami, has installed huge solar power sites around through- out Africa, including a 188.88 MWdc site in Angola. It is the largest single solar PV project in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Bloomberg report did not disclose the amount of money to be lent by the bank. How- ever, just a few days prior, Nigerian national newspaper This Day reported the details of the loan as a 20-year facility of $1.5bn.
The solar power project will be developed by Sun Africa for the Niger Delta Power Holding Co., and will help Nigeria integrate solar power into their energy mix to boost the electricity sup- ply on the national grid. Sun Africa has spent the past two years completing feasibility studies and technical analysis.
Nigeria has been looking to improve its energy grid in recent years. Despite having the ability to produce lots of electricity, poor main- tenance and insufficient investment have meant that only around a third of the country’s installed capacity is dispatched to the grid each day. This means that many Nigerians still live with no reli- able access to electricity.
Nigerian companies have struggled to relia- bly provide power to the nation since 2013, when the government ceded overall control over dis- tribution. In June, the World Bank stated that Nigeria needs around $100bn in the next 10 years to fix its power supply.
ReNew Power to launch $8bn green hydrogen project in Egypt
EGYPT
INDIA-BASED, Nasdaq-listed and partly Gold- man Sachs-owned ReNew Power has hoped on the bandwagon to turn Egypt into a global hydrogen production hub with the launch of a $8bn green hydrogen production project. The new facility to be located at the Suez Canal Eco- nomic Zone (SCZone) is to have a total annual production capacity of 220,000 tonnes.
ReNew Power signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with various entities associated with the Egyptian government to kick-start the project including the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA),
SCZONE, the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), the Sovereign Fund of Egypt. ReNew Power is one of the largest renewable energy independent power producers in India and globally. The company currently has an aggregate capacity of 12.8 GW. They have utili- ty-scale wind and solar energy projects as well as renewable energy projects catering to the energy requirements of commercial and industrial customers while helping reduce India’s carbon
footprint.
Week 32 11•August•2022 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P13
