South Africa - power and energy news

Uduaghan calls for decentralized power

Areva to make solar plant in SA

French energy company Areva has announced plans to build a 100 megawatt concentrated solar plant in South Africa in 2011 and 2012.

Business Day cited Tom Bartolomei, the French firm's senior vice-president for business development as its source.

Areva is synonymous as a nuclear energy company, and has stated that it also wants to get into South Africa's nuclear industry. Areva has been in the running for the contract to build Eskom's second nuclear plant.

Africa is the perfect continent to produce solar energy. "South Africa is fortunate to have a strong solar resource," said Tom Bartolomei. 

Nigerian leader calling for decentralized power distribution

Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan called for the Nigerian government to decentralize power distribution in hopes of amping up the country's power generation at the Delta Diaspora Direct conference held in Geneva, Switzerland.

Despite Delta State contributing about N3.9 billion to the independent power projects (IPP) initiative, Uduaghan claimed that the centralization that the country currently has in place is only hindering the productivity of its states.

Power plant upgrades impact local manufacturers

Due to decaying high voltage power cables, Eskom has injected some much needed money into the economy by committing to improve the energy infrastructure. The US$1.532 billion power plant integration and grid strengthening programs offer a plethora of opportunities to cable manufacturers, as these plants need to be connected to the main transmission grid infrastructure.

"Many African countries including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mauritius and Ethiopia are also embarking on developing new power generation infrastructure," says Frost & Sullivan energy analyst Marc Goldstein. "This all has to be integrated into the existing grid infrastructure. Local cable manufacturers will be keen to have a share of this pie."

Related articles:

Nigeria gets first solar power campaign | Egypt leading the way in African wind power | GDS Publishing | Could Africa power the world with concentrated solar power?

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