Angolan power for SAPP

Though Angola belongs to the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), Namibia’s northern neighbour is not yet interconnected to the regional grid that allows for the trading in electricity among member states.

According to Jose Quarta - administrator of Angola’s regulatory authority for electricity and water, Instituto Regulador dos Serviços de Electricidade e de Água (IRSEA) - there is a current change of policy in Angola to adapt the single-buyer model and its resultant monopoly on electricity transmission in that country. The proposal to change the model is currently before the Angolan parliament, Quarta said last week.

The new policy would allow private sector players to also act to transmit electrical power in Angola, to accelerate interconnection between Angola and Namibia, and also to Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, he said.

Interconnections between Angola and Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) respectively will be accelerated, he said.

“We are going to transfer the excess electricity that we have in the country to the region. We have production and no transmission, which will be resolved through that,” he said. We believe that it will happen in the coming years,” he added.

Single energy market

Quarta was in Windhoek in his capacity as the vice-chairperson of the Regional Energy Regulators Association of Southern Africa (RERA), to mark the handover of the chairpersonship from the hands of Motlatsi Ramafole to Skhumbuzo Tsabedze.

Ramafole leads the Lesotho Electricity and Water Authority, while Tsabedze heads up the Eswathini Energy Regulatory Authority. Namibia has played host to RERA since its establishment in 2002 and later granted the association diplomatic accreditation in 2010, according to the organisation’s website.

Electricity Control Board (ECB) CEO Robert Kahimise elaborated that the association also counts Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritius and the Seychelles among its members, while the DRC and Zanzibar hold observer status. The SADC body aims to capacitate electricity regulators in the region, and to promote universal access to energy, while benchmarking among members is equally important, Kahimise said.

“The one vision of SADC energy ministers is to integrate, and for that RERA will develop the necessary tools to contribute to the vision of an African single energy market,” he added.

Tsabedze said RERA’s mission is to facilitate the harmonisation of regulatory policies, legislation, standards and practices. "It aims to be a platform for cooperation among energy regulators in SADC,” he said. A regional energy market that is efficient, integrated, sustainable, harmonised and investment friendly is what RERA strives for, he noted.

Highlights

Ramafole listed highlights of RERA’s past work to include moving towards a regional grid code to ensure uniform electricity supply in the region, development of important tariff setting tools, harmonising standards and encouraging all member countries to move towards cost reflectivity in electricity tariffs.

Tsabedze elaborated on the ‘energy trilemma’ that faces all electricity regulators - ensuring affordability, reliability and sustainability of electricity supply in their respective countries. "The region has an energy deficit,” he said. According to the new chairperson, the role of regulators is to protect citizens, which is why tariff structures where higher income consumers cross-subsidise lower earners is encouraged, Tsabedze added.

At the same occasion, the ECB manager for electricity and hydrocarbons Francois Robinson was appointed the interim executive director for RERA for six months while a substantive executive director is recruited. Robinson takes over from Elijah Sichone who resigned in August after serving in the position for 19 years.

Robinson said that among RERA’s other achievements, the maintaining of standards in the industry region-wide must be counted, as well as the development of the independent power produce framework, cross-border guidelines, harmonised agreement templates and key performance indicators for utilities, which are now endorsed and enforceable.