- Renewables Rising
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- Major African telco hits fully green operations
Major African telco hits fully green operations
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 | Vodacom Group has become the first multinational telecoms operator in Africa to power its operations entirely with renewable electricity. This achievement was made possible through a combination of on-site renewable energy installations, power purchase agreements (PPAs), and the purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs). |
The African market demand for telecom towers is still growing as mobile phone ownership increases. Yet the grids that are supposed to power them have proven unreliable and costly. Renewables are becoming a reliable alternative.
Many telecom operators are adopting solar power. In the DR Congo, Orange and Vodacom plan to build 2,000 solar-powered mobile base stations across the country in six years to connect at least 19 million people.
Our take: Declining costs of solar and lithium-ion batteries will increase the savings margin and could potentially lead to lower calling and internet rates…Read more (2 min)
 | Electricity prices remained largely stable in South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt in June. However, Kenya saw a slight 0.5% decrease for both residential and commercial consumers. Fossil fuel prices showed more variation, with South Africa's petrol price increasing by R1.58 and Nigerian petrol prices declining by about 10 naira, helped by a stronger local currency. |
Renewables Rising tracks power price fluctuations in local currencies across four representative countries: Kenya, South Africa Egypt and Nigeria. The data is collected from public sources every month.
Of the countries we monitor, Egypt’s power prices in both electricity and fuel stagnated in June after a hike in May as the government cut down on fuel subsidies.
Our take: Kenya’s power prices may continue to drop with the ongoing long rains… Read more (2 min)
 | Kenya has been carrying out load shedding in the past few months. Generation capacity has not kept pace with demand, and new grid injections have been from variable renewables. Yet the country has unexploited geothermal reserves, more than enough to meet current demand, writes Fiona Magomere, a grid expert working with Kenya Power. |
Fiona is a recipient of the Africa Queen of Energy Awards for her achievements and contribution, including mentorship to early-career women in the energy sector.
In a guest article she says that to truly harness renewable energy resources, more significant investments are needed to modernise and upgrade grid infrastructure to make it resilient and future-ready.
Staff at JUMEME (a mini grid company receive the Best Green Electric Company award at the Tanzania Energy Awards 2025
Events
🗓️ Participate in the Open Source in Energy Access Symposium (Jun 13)
🗓️ Attend a conference on hybrid power systems (Jun 28)
🗓️ Congregate at the Power & Elec Uganda event (Jul 7)
Jobs
🦺 Be Scatec Solar's HV Engineer (South Africa)
👷🏻♀️ Siemens Gamesa seeks a Heavy Lift Technician (Africa - remote)
💼 Apply for Sun King’s Quality Assurance & Learning Assessor role (Malawi)
Various
🤝 Solar Panda fully acquires VITALITE Zambia
💸 Ghana introduces fuel levy to raise $1.2 billion for power generation
🔌 South Africa’s Redstone Concentrated Solar plant is now operational
Seen on LinkedIn
Assaad Razzouk, Chief Executive Officer at Gurīn Energy, says, “Solar + batteries will be everywhere all at once by 2030: no other source of energy can compete on price, or speed of deployment, or on scaling-up.”