Africa - Vast wind energy potential to be exploited

Despite Africa's vast wind energy potential, countries outside of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have been slow to push for investments and set binding targets, analysts and industry officials said.

The three countries supply some 95 percent of the 563 megawatts of installed capacity on the continent, and have benefited from demand from Europe, where countries are under pressure to meet set CO2 reduction targets. Investments elsewhere on the continent have been minimal.

In South Africa, the country's new energy minister Dipuo Peters said last week she wanted independent power producers to add 400 MW from wind to the grid within the next three years.

Nano Energy, an energy consultancy, said this target vastly undersold the country's wind potential of at least 60,000 MW, and that lack of an updated wind energy map, limited political will, and a reliance on fossil fuels made progress slow.

Nano's Managing Director Jason Schaffler said the continent's largest economy had abundant wind potential, and financiers willing to invest.

"But we have built our economy on coal, a fossil resource, and it will require a more serious carbon commitment and more ambitious targets to change that," he said.

Egypt's wind energy programme based on public-private partnerships and the government's active renewable energy policy should serve as a blueprint of what can be done, said Frost & Sullivan energy analyst Sipha Ndawonde.

"Loans with favourable interest payments provided by Spanish, Danish, and French organisations have assisted in developing the North African wind market ... South Africa should look to investigate similar routes," he said.

EGYPT AHEAD
Egypt has set a target for wind to make up 12 percent of its energy mix by 2020, with wind farms adding 7,200 MW to the grid.

"The fact that the government is adopting regions and farms is a good point as you have a baseline for wind energy production," said Mohab Hallouda, a World Bank energy expert.

"(The state) can sustain operations should going to the private sector prove to have hurdles."
Egypt sourced some 390 MW from wind by the end of 2008, according to the latest World Wind Energy report.

Alongside farms funded by the government and multilateral organisations, Egypt published in May a first in a series of planned tenders on a build-operate-own basis, attracting interest from 72 international investors so far.

Ndawonde said public-private partnership will provide start-up capital and ensure the sector's sustainability.

Eastern and western Africa have been drawn to wind power, especially after droughts raised doubts about the reliability of hydro sources the regions largely depend on.

Kenya's Lake Turkana Wind Power plans to produce 300 MW of electricity by 2012 from wind power in the north of the country.

But to harness wind, the countries must reform their energy sectors and upgrade transmission and distribution networks.

Analysts expect projects to boom in the next few years, with ventures reaching beyond the roughly 100 MW added last year.

For more information, please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net