SADC leaders give Sh38 trillion power plan fresh impetus

Dar es Salaam. Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders have agreed to focus on three issues to improve electricity generation capacity in the region.

The agreement was reached during a high-level meeting held on the sidelines of the UN Climate Conference of Parties (COP27) Summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

The meeting convened and chaired by President Samia Suluhu Hassan discussed investment in renewable energy sources and transmission infrastructure in southern African countries.

Other leaders in attendance were presidents Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia and Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botwana, while Angola was represented by Vice President Bornito de Sousa.

Also present were World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) presidents David Malpass and Akinwumi Adesina, respectively.

In her concluding remarks made available to the media in Dar es Salaam yesterday, President Hassan said the leaders agreed in principle to use the renewable energy compact as an investment package for increasing electricity access in the region.

“We also talked about investors and international partners. Fortunately, the World Bank, African Development Bank and AU are all here,” she said.

If the region was to make economic sense to financiers, the Head of State added, leaders needed to ensure that power was readily available.

“We must also promote the stability and the size of our power pool electricity market as leverage for cheap financing of our power pool projects.”

She said considering the fact that renewable power projects were costly, it was time leaders started mobilising resources for such schemes in the region.

“The SAPP (Southern African Power Pool) coordination centre, stature and functions should be enhanced and elevated,” President Hassan said, noting that although the power pool has existed for 27 years now, it has only helped to interconnect some, but not all SADC member states.

“We now need to revive and enrich it so that it performs its task of powering the southern part of Africa,” she said, and urged her fellow SADC leaders to take the renewable energy topic as a standing agenda in all future summits.

Known as SAPP’s Grow Green Compact, the renewable energy plan requires an investment of $16.4 billion (about Sh38 trillion) to effectively transform the region’s power generation capacity.

To increase access, promote consumption and advance decarbonisation in the next ten years, SAPP countries need to generate 8.4GW of variable renewable energy (VRE) and build 2,500 kilometres of transmission lines, including the remaining interconnections.

SADC is short of electricity due to various reasons, and needs new generation capacity of about 5,670MW.

Besides, the region will also have to address the fluctuating nature of renewable energy so as to ensure stable operation of the power system.

AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina said the bank was putting 83 percent of its financing into renewable energy.

He said Africa needs an energy mix of hydro, solar wind and geothermal, and combine it with gas to have stable grids that will allow the continent to industrialise swiftly.

“Africa cannot be poor in an environmentally sustainable manner. We want to make sure we have access to electricity; affordable electricity; security of electricity, and stability of electricity. We don’t want to become the museum of poverty in the world,” he said, adding that he fully supported the initiative.

Dr Adesina, however, urged the leaders to involve the private sector in execution of energy projects, citing the 25MW Bujagali hydroelectricity power station in Uganda and the 420MW Nachtigal hydroelectricity power station in Cameroon as vivid examples of power-generation projects that were working well due to the involvement of the private sector.

Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera said Africa had potential for renewable and non-renewable energy resources, noting, however, that the potential was being under-exploited for power generation.

He said the region needed to increase the share of renewable energy technology in electricity supply, and enhance the ability of systems to cope with change and avoid electricity insecurity by diversifying generation options, risk management and preparedness.

Dr Chakwera added that the 2020 target by SADC to commission 16,515MW within three years whereby 5,000MW would be produced in South Africa while Tanzania would do 4,900MW would be a game-changer in the sense that other member states would easily connect from peers.

President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia said SADC countries should not look at renewable energy individually, but regionally. “If we look at the demand side of energy in SADC, it is too high. There is a need to work with the private sector to strengthen the accessibility of energy” he said.

The SAPP was created in August 1995 at the SADC summit held in Kempton Park, South Africa, when SADC member states, excluding Mauritius, signed an inter-governmental memorandum of understanding for the establishment of an electricity pool in the region.