by Kizito Sikuka in Mbabane, Swaziland – SANF 16 no. 33
Access to adequate and reliable energy plays a pivotal enabling role in the overall development agenda of any region, including southern Africa.
Water extraction and distribution, for example, require the availability of energy supplies. In addition to this, achieving full industrialization in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) requires energy so that industries are able to function properly.
In a bid to provide the right environment to promote socio-economic development, the region is implementing a variety of measures to boost energy production.
For example, in 2016 alone, SADC expects to commission new power projects that will add 3,932 megawatts (MW) to the regional grid.
Speaking at a media briefing ahead of the 36th SADC Summit set for 30-31 August in Mbabane, the Kingdom of Swaziland, Director of Infrastructure and Services at the SADC Secretariat, Remmy Makumbe said this new power is “the highest ever potential addition to regional generation capacity” for SADC.
Last year, southern Africa commissioned new projects that added 1,864MW to the regional grid.
A number of projects are earmarked for commissioning over the next few years to ensure that the region is energy self-sufficient.
“We are implementing a number of short-term measures, including rehabilitation of old plants and building of new power generation projects are on-going to address the generation deficit in order to achieve energy adequacy between 2010 and 2022,” Makumbe said.
“These measures will add a total 32,479MW of new generation capacity between 2016 and 2022,” he added.
For this year, he said most of the power will come from South Africa that will provide 1,624MW. Angola, which is yet to be linked to the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) grid, is expected to weigh in with 930MW, while the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will add 458MW.
Other notable contributors will be Mozambique (360MW), Zambia (310MW) and Zimbabwe (200MW).
Since Angola is not yet linked to the SAPP grid, not all new power commissioned in SADC will be available to other countries.
All mainland SADC countries, with the exception of Angola, Malawi and the United Republic of Tanzania, are interconnected through the SAPP regional grid, allowing them to trade energy.
New generation capacity installed in any of the three non-participating countries is, therefore, not accessible to the nine other members of SAPP – Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Makumbe said the implementation of various Demand Side Management (DSM) programmes such as load shedding has, to some extent, succeeded in restraining the overall electricity demand in the region.
Implementation of these DSM programmes has resulted in savings of about 4,561MW of electricity between 2009 and 2015.
It is envisaged that the SADC region will save more than 6,000MW by 2018 if such initiatives are implemented according to plan.
The theme for the 36th SADC Summit is “Resource Mobilisation for Investment in Sustainable Energy Infrastructure for an Inclusive SADC Industrialisation for the Prosperity of the Region”.
The Energy Sector Plan of the SADC Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP) approved in 2012 identified 73 power projects that will increase generation capacity from the current 56,000 MW and ensure that the projected demand of 96,000MW is surpassed by 2027.
The RIDMP’s Energy Sector Plan estimates the total cost of additional electricity generation capacity up to 2027 to be in the range of US$114 billion to US$233 billion.
Related transmission investment costs to support new generation capacity are estimated at about US$540 million. This investment in transmission infrastructure does not, however, include planned transmission interconnectors and national backbone lines.
The theme of the 36th summit continues the industrialization trajectory of the last two summits hosted by Zimbabwe in 2014 and Botswana in 2015, which focused on economic transformation and sustainable development through beneficiation and value addition, and on transforming natural resources and human capital to boost sustainable development respectively.
At the summit, King Mswati III of Swaziland will assume the rotating SADC chair from President Seretse Khama Ian Khama of Botswana. sardc.net
