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Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Standouts within the continent were recognized for their operating prowess at African Utility Week with a Nigerian firm walking away as Africa’s Top Power Utility.
Genesis Electricity Ltd. (GEL) was one of the first IPPs executing a 78-MW power plant to supply power to one of two functional refineries in Nigeria and is currently in the process of acquiring a 1,020-MW thermal IPP. GEL’s CEO Akinwole Omoboriowo II thanked the Nigerian government for the opportunity to invest in the construction of the 84 MW off-grid electric power supply solution.
Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage Corp. (NWSC) was the winner of the African Water Utility as a result of setting benchmark policies and executing practices to help improve the overall system. The conference’s program director Nicolette Pombo-van Zyl said: “In the early 2000, utilities started visiting NWSC to benchmark practices and policies. As the number of visits increased NWSC established the External Services Unit in 2005 to handle such programs and render advisory, training and consultancy services to the utilities. Ever since over 110 benchmarking visits and trainings have been carried out and the utilities have realized tremendous improvements.”
Cyprian Chitundu, Managing Director of Zambia Electricity Supply Corp. Ltd. (Zesco), received the African Utility Executive award because of his aggressive expansion plans. Some of Zesco’s progress can be seen in the Kariba North Bank Expansion Project, extending the grid to the northwestern province, the Kalumbila 330-kV transmission project, and the Luano and Kitwe substations.
Sierra Leone’s Makeni Project is the first sugarcane-based power generation project for ethanol production to be registered as a CDM project in the continent. Said Howard Barrie, partner in the Project Finance Group at Eversheds, said: “Many people worked very hard. We have been able to provide sustainable employment for 1,800 people in Sierra Leone and create a new export industry in the country, namely the export of ethanol to Europe, while increasing generated power by 20%.”
Last but certainly not least comes the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) which gained recognition for its four-country interconnection project. The Zimbabwe-Zambia-Botswana-Namibia (Zizabona) is currently the only project that involves so many countries, which all signed a MoU. There is no other project of this caliber that has progressed as fast and is a milestone achievement for the power pool.
For a complete list of award winners, please visit the African Utility Week website.
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