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    Gas Wins in Power Africa Projects

Summary

The US initiative has benefited gas fired projects most in terms of capacity although there are more, smaller renewable energy plants.

by: Thulani Mpofu

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Natural Gas & LNG News, Africa, Gas to Power, Corporate, Political, Ministries

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Gas Wins in Power Africa Projects

Power Africa, a US government initiative to harness America's private sector to invest in energy projects in sub-Saharan Africa has, since 2013, facilitated financial close for 122 transactions, 19 of which are natural gas projects generating or expected to generate 3.965 GW.

According to the latest Power Africa report, as of May 15, natural gas has the biggest contribution in terms of planned and existing projects, followed by wind at 2.452 GW, solar (1.637 GW), hydro (1.493 GW), heavy fuel oil (316 MW), geothermal (158 MW), biomass (114.26 MW) and diesel (35 MW).  
 
However, in terms of the number of projects that have attained financial close, solar has the highest at 43 transactions.  Wind and hydro are joint second with 24 transactions each, followed by natural gas at 19 projects. Six financial deals have been concluded for heavy fuel oil generation, four for biomass and one each for geothermal and diesel.

Set up during Barack Obama's presidency, Power Africa seeks to increase access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa by adding more than 30 GW of more efficient and cleaner electricity generation capacity and to connect 60mn new homes and business to electricity by 2030.  It links private investors, primarily from the US , with their counterparts in Africa and in African governments to devise energy projects.

In June last year, Power Africa published the "Gas Roadmap for sub-Saharan Africa" under which nine African nations are set to benefit from a $175bn facility to add 16 GW of gas-fired power across the sub-region Africa by 2030.

The May 2019 report says in Côte d'Ivoire, Azito Power Plant Phase III, a gas-fired 130MW facility reached financial close in 2015 while in Ghana two projects – Kpone Independent Power Plant (350 MW) and Amandi Energy (200 MW) – reached financial close in December 2014 and December 2016 respectively. Power Africa is active in Tanzania as well where financial deals for a combined 576 MW were clinched in 2013 and 2016 for three projects at Kinyerezi 1 and 2 worth $608mn.

Nigeria, with sub-Saharan Africa's largest gas reserves, has nine projects under the Power Africa initiative producing or planned to produce 2. 397 GW, the highest for any country under the framework. Financial packages for them were agreed between 2013 and 2014 and all the nine are already producing electricity.

Mozambique, which has 181 trillion ft³ of commercially recoverable gas, has only one project, Kuvaninga Energia, under the US initiative, generating 80.5 MW.

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