Keith Katyora, Senior Manager: Grid Expansion & Energy Systems at the Energy Council of South Africa explores the transmission and market challenges shaping Africa’s energy future.
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Katyora sees great promise in Mozambique and Angola becoming the next countries to connect to the Southern African Power Pool. Mozambique especially has had extensive investment into their gas-to-power and hydropower projects.
“So that strategically will place Mozambique at that nice sweet spot where it will become… the regional key exporter. But over and above that we also have the Central Térmica de Temane for gas to power which was initially built for 400MW but I do understand that they might be extending it to another 400MW.
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“What is also nice about Mozambique is that from an electrification point of view… the numbers are not yet high enough to be able to absorb that load. So, it will have excess supply that can be exported,” he explained. The situation on the Angola side is similar.
Africa’s transmission grids remains chronically underfunded
When it comes to grid expansion across SAPP Katyora lack of financing is still holding is back.
“We’re grappling with a space where only 5% of the entire global funding for the energy transition is coming into Africa and… much of it is concentrated in specific countries. You have South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and for good reason because obviously they’ve created some form of enabling environment,” said Katyora.
He goes on to explain insights on regional power markets, infrastructure development, regulatory barriers and the steps needed to unlock greater investment, strengthen energy security and support economic growth across the continent.
