African States Rank High on Renewables - REN21
A report by REN21, an organisation that brings together governments and researchers interested in renewables, has found that global new investment in 2015 in renewable power and fuels (excluding hydro-power projects larger than 50 MW) reached a record $285.9bn, up 5% on 2014.
Of that figure, 2015 investments in new renewable power capacity at $265.8bn were more than double the $130bn allocated globally to new coal and natural gas-fired generation capacity, the ‘Renewables 2016: Global Status Report’ said.
Including investments in hydropower projects larger than 50 MW, total new investment in 2015 in renewable power and fuels (excluding renewable heating and cooling) was at least $328.9bn.
The report also highlights how certain African countries rank high in terms of global renewable investments.
Morocco was the world’s top 2015 investor in concentrated solar thermal power plants with South Africa 2nd – the two brought online respectively 160 MW and 150 MW last year, according to the report. It found too that, on a per-capita basis, Mauritania surprisingly was the biggest investor in renewable power and fuels, with Morocco in 4th place.
South Africa was the first country on the continent to achieve 1 GW of solar PV and helped push Africa’s wind power capacity above the 3 GW mark, and Kenya ranked fourth globally for new geothermal power capacity, the report added.
Recently Total and Eni have made policy declarations that they would like to be invest more in clean energy in Africa, mainly gas-fired power generation but increasingly also in renewables and particularly solar power.
In terms of decentralised energy, Sub-Saharan Africa was the largest market for off-grid solar products at 1.37mn units sold – with many sold in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania -- ahead of south Asia at 1.28mn units.
Graphic from REN21 Renewables 2016 Global Status Report
The REN21 report though is less clear on the breakdown of the estimated $130bn invested last year in coal and gas-fired generation – with countries like Algeria and Egypt understood to be still investing more in fossil fuel-fired generation than in renewables to meet urgent power supply requirements.
Egypt for instance is building three gas-fired plants, each of 4.8 gigawatts (GW), using Siemens turbines - with plans for others.
Less clean fuels however are also envisaged in Egypt. Local contractor Elsewedy Electric said this weekend it will complete a feasibility study by December 2016 on two planned coal-fired plants, each of 2 GW, reported Daily News Egypt; they will be built by Marubeni plans on the Mediterranean coast. They fit into an Egyptian policy of installing some 12.5 GW worth of new coal-fired power plants by 2022 “in order to diversify energy resources”, said the Japanese firm in March.
Mark Smedley