While the current state of transmission infrastructure in the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and East African Power Pool (EAPP) is good, there is work that still need to be done. These were the sentiments shared by Chikoma Kazunga, Africa GreenCo’s Head of Business Development & New Ventures at a keynote session concluding the Solar & Storage Live conference in Johannesburg on 27 March.
According to Kazunga, SAPP is the most interconnected of all the power pools in Africa. However, he noted there are still some shortcomings. Currently three members of the power pool are not connected: Angola, Malawi and Tanzania.
“Tanzania is a critical link between East and Southern Africa power pools. Within SAPP, we have fairly good interconnection going from South Africa to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Through that line, about 500MW of capacity can move in that direction. There’s another connector between Mozambique and South Africa which can move 1,000MW of capacity,” Kazunga stated.
“Beyond that, the interconnectors are not strong as they should be. Zambia and Namibia have a DC line that’s roughly a 180MW of capacity. Zambia and DRC have an interconnection at roughly 220MW of capacity. There is also an interconnection between Mozambique and Zimbabwe with low capacity.”
In west Africa, progress in being made in developing the West African Power Pool (WAPP).
Souraki Sima, Head of Digital Transformation at Energie du Mali shared that the project is ongoing despite challenges such as the grid being weak and the needed financial backing as transmission lines require high capital cost.
Sima highlighted that it “is important to have a fully integrated West African Power Pool so that every country can have energy trade in the region which can contribute to the development of the region.”
He further underlined that by having an integrated transmission line, nations in the region would overcome their power shortages, which in turn have effect in attracting investments. Sima urged governments in the region to prioritise transmission, enabling the region to be fully integrated.
As the effects of climate change ramp up, Kazunga alluded to the recent impact of El Nino experienced in Southern Africa.
“We experienced El Nino last year, this meant significantly reduced rainfall in Southern Africa. The big hydro dams that we rely on for power supply in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the surrounding countries didn’t have enough capacity.
“In Zambia there was loadshedding up to 20 hours as result of that.
“The interesting thing about El Nino is that when it causes rainfall deficit in south-west Africa, it turns to cause very high levels of rainfall in east Africa,” said Kazunga.
He further noted that Tanzania recently commissioned the Julius Nyerere hydropower plant in the northern part of the country. He said, the Eastern African country had record amounts of water in the dam.
“They [Tanzania] had in access amount of about 1,000MW of capacity that they could not utilise, and they didn’t turn on turbines because they had nowhere to send the power. Meanwhile, we were sitting in Zambia in desperate need of power but due to the unavailability of an interconnector between the two countries, we couldn’t utilise that power.
“This is good example of how increased interconnection between countries can mitigate effects of shortages in any one country as a result of outage or weather phenomenon,” he said.
Kazunga shared some exciting developments about the pipeline. He mentioned privately financed interconnectors that are coming into play.
According to Kazunga, there is an interconnector that is will run from Solwezi in the north-west province of Zambia into Kolwezi, which is the heart of the copper mining region in the DRC, where there is a huge demand.
Another interconnector that is being built is between Malawi and Mozambique. Kazunga said the project should be commissioned soon, which will finally connect Malawi to the rest of SAPP. At that point Angola and Tanzania become the only outstanding unconnected countries.
“There is an interconnector that is under construction, it’s a World Bank financed project that is going to move a significant amount of power between those countries.
“That line will also be a critical link to connecting the southern power pool with eastern power pool, enabling power to flow in both directions,” said Kazunga.
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