ESI Africa

What’s stopping the batteries bought to beat power outages across Africa from becoming the continent’s cheapest peaking resource? Africa reversed the grid infrastructure sequence when households and businesses started paying for their own batteries to survive unstable power supply and diesel costs. In South Africa, thousands of home and business batteries sit idle for weeks, …

Gazetted in October 2025 after much to-ing and froing, the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2025 breaks down the proposed energy mix into two scenarios, depending on what kind of energy capacity the country ends up creating. Still, GreenCape’s National Renewable Energy Market Intelligence Report 2026 says the IRP update signals a long-term national shift towards …

For most of the past decade, the question about energy storage was whether it would ever be affordable. That question has been answered.  Stationary battery packs fell to around $70/kWh in 2025, down 45% year on year, according to BloombergNEF. Africa installed an estimated 17GW of solar in 2026, a 45% rise on the year …

New research shows hospitals with electricity available at least 22 hours a day had inpatient mortality about 41% lower than those without. The study examined 303 hospitals and reference health centres across North Kivu, South Kivu and Haut-Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of …

There is a familiar ritual around climate finance: a financing gap is declared, pledges are announced, and the focus falls on how much money is being committed. But there is another question that receives far less attention: what form does that financing take? The answer matters as much as the amount of money pledged, particularly …

South Africa’s Transmission Development Plan (TDP) calls for the construction of 14,500km of transmission lines, and substations, which is a build rate five times the current pace of creation. [embedded content] Keith Katyora, Senior Manager: Grid Expansion & Energy Systems at the Energy Council of South Africa, explores the transmission and market challenges shaping Africa’s …

Abel Sakhau, Chief Sustainability Officer, Sanlam Group, South Africa, discusses the need for a paradigm shift in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices, arguing that they should be implemented on the ground, rather than merely discussed in corporate boardrooms. “I think that what needs to change about the word ESG so that we can avoid …

While renewables such as solar, wind and hydrogen are increasingly being considered for off-grid and hybrid mining applications, the path to large-scale integration remains fraught with technical, economic and structural challenges. [embedded content] Philip Myburgh, Group Head of Trade for Business & Commercial Banking at Standard Bank, discusses how critical minerals, regional integration, trade finance, …

The UN’s new Global Grids Accelerator arrives without a dollar of new money, and the test for Africa is whether it can get transmission lines to reach financial close. [embedded content] The Accelerator doesn’t create a new financing institution but does act as a broker. It brings UN agencies, development finance institutions, utilities and investors …

Attention is shifting to the idea that changing people’s electricity usage habits could help the South African electricity grid cope with the way variable renewable energy sources are affecting grid stability. While opening the Windaba 2026 conference, Minister of Electricity and Energy Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa pointed out the need to create peak load demand now …

South Africa will procure its entire IRP2025 battery storage allocation now, rather than spreading it to 2030, to stop excess renewable generation from destabilising the grid. Minister of Electricity and Energy Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa made the case at a media briefing today [7 October] on the first ministerial determination under the IRP2025. The determination prioritises …

As South Africa’s onshore wind market matures alongside solar PV and battery storage, strong asset stewardship across an ageing wind fleet is becoming urgent. Our first utility-scale wind farms have been operating for over a decade. How we operate, maintain and repower them will shape investor confidence in everything that follows. How do we protect …

Alet Appelo, Senior Structural Engineer at Steinmüller Africa explains what mining companies are currently asking for to improve maintenance and extend the life of their existing assets. She explains how their fitness for service assessment can be used to determine the condition and potentially the remaining lifespan of a plant. “This information will help an …

For many businesses, the decision to use solar power to cut electricity costs is taking a backseat to how they will fund the project. While the economics remain attractive for organisations facing rising electricity tariffs, access to flexible and appropriate financing structures is playing a dominant role in determining which projects proceed and which remain …

The Assistant Director for FSD Africa in Kenya, Lucy Nyoike is one of the leaders featured in The African Power 7 Energy Elites 2025/26 magazine. In this podcast she provides insights into what Africa’s development ambitions mean for private sector capital investment. Nyoike reminds us that the continent is working on a variety of financial …

Every tonne of food rotting away in an African landfill carries a water bill no-one asks you to pay. But unlike the hidden value in waste-to-energy, this hidden water bill is detrimental to water-stressed regions, which is pretty much the whole of Africa. Today (29 September) marks the UN’s International Day of Awareness of Food …

Seth Kofi Debrah Seth Kofi Debrah has devoted much of his career to developing Ghana’s nuclear capabilities. A senior figure within the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (and the Ghana Nuclear Power Programme Organisation), he has helped shape strategy to introduce nuclear power while mentoring many engineers and scientists. Princess Mthombeni Princess (Princy) Mthombeni has become …

Cloud dashboards, connected meters and mobile apps are replacing standalone prepaid vending points across Africa’s utilities. Each addition widens what a utility now has to defend. [embedded content] Listen to this STS Association podcast on smart metering “Metering, in fact, is more connected than ever before,” says Lance Hawkins-Dady, board chairman of the STS Association, …

A presidential candidate’s idea to install solar panels on every roof in Nigeria may seem impressive; however, the figures and available roof space suggest it is not feasible. The electricity crisis in Nigeria needs resolving since, although the installed capacity of the grid is 13,625MW, the average available capacity is about 4,384MW, roughly 32% of …

South Africa’s draft National Waste Management Strategy will eventually be the blueprint to achieve the National Development Plan’s Vision 2030 to become a zero-waste-to-landfill society. Public comment on the strategy closed in April this year, but the Strategy itself has not yet been finalised. [embedded content] Dean Thompson, CEO of EnviroServ, discusses the need for …

Anaerobic digestion works efficiently in conditions of 30–40°C. Below 15°C, you have to use expensive heating to get the process going. Most of Africa sits in or around that ideal temperature range for most of the year. So, theoretically we could run these systems on a close-to-passive level across most of the continent. [embedded content] …

Consumers are reaching a breaking point with rising electricity costs. In South Africa, the move towards a liberalised market is framed as the ultimate solutions. However this silver bullet is unlikely to lower prices through competition alone. [embedded content] Kay Walsh clarifies a liberalised market, the unbundling of Eskom, and how to achieve a middle …

On the face of it, waste-to-energy projects are promoted as reducing the environmental impact of using coal or in line with initiatives to prevent wastage. [embedded content] Ankit Agarwal and Mike Bess of Niras Limited explore the opportunities for the commercial application of biogas across Africa But burning waste for energy can also have negative consequences. …

Many utilities are cash-poor but data-rich. So, the path to deliver reliability, expand access, improve customer satisfaction, reduce losses, decarbonise and strengthen governance begins with insight and data strategies. [embedded content] Utilities worldwide are generating more operational data than ever before, yet many still struggle to turn that information into faster decision-making, improved customer service …