Africa – 11 March 2024

AFRICA

• Move to improve cross-border transmission. Members of the Southern African Power Pool have launched a new R24.8 billion facility that will pool public and private capital to support grid infrastructure developments focused on improving cross-border energy transmission in the region. The Regional Transmission Infrastructure Finance Facility will prioritise projects that focus on connecting unconnected SAPP members such as Angola. (Source)

• Distributed renewable energy (DRE) is going to be essential to achieve the goal of universal access to energy by 2030, both in Africa and globally. So highlighted World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme lead energy specialist Raihan Elahi. He was addressing a session of the Africa Energy Indaba, in Cape Town. “We’re really off track” regarding achieving universal access to energy by 2030, he pointed out. Worldwide, in 2020, 675-million people still had no access to electricity, while in 2021, 2.3-billion people had no access to clean cooking methods. To achieve universal clean cooking in sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of electrification across the continent would have to be tripled. “A new approach is needed to achieve universal energy access by 2030,” he affirmed.   achieve universal clean cooking in sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of electrification across the continent would have to be tripled. “A new approach is needed to achieve universal energy access by 2030,” he affirmed. That was where DRE came in. DRE was mainly focused on mini-grids and standalone solar power, and could benefit 50% of Africans currently without electricity. This was not a theoretical concept, he noted: Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda were already adopting DRE. To promote DRE, the World Bank has launched an initiative it called Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up, or DARES for short. This has as its targets the provision of electrification to 300-million people, 1-million farmers, 1-million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), 100 000 schools and clinics, and the construction of 10 000 mini-grids, all by 2030. (Source)