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Wood Mackenzie’s report says Sub-Saharan Africa needs $350 billion investment for improved electricity

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A new report by Wood Mackenzie Ltd says Sub-Saharan Africa would need an investment of $350 billion between now and 2030, to be able to improve electricity generation/distribution and potentially solve the region’s long-standing electricity access problem.

The report, titled “Utility evolution in Africa to reshape global electricity demandwas released on Thursday (17th March) by the UK-based energy and consultancy group.

“These investment opportunities work around the fiscal and operational bottlenecks posed by some of Sub-Saharan Africa’s state utilities. Service providers are going straight to the bankable segments of residential, commercial, and industrial electricity demand, typically through distributed, renewable, off-grid solutions where the public utility does not feature.” The report says.

Wood Mackenzie Ltd is a global research and consultancy firm with over 50 years of practice. Wood Mackenzie partners organisations and governments to inspire better decision-making with a focus on oil, gas & LNG, power & renewables, chemicals, and metals & mining sector teams located around the world.

According to research, the number of people in the region with access to electricity has grown dramatically over the past decade, but about 600 million remain without power. To meet a United Nations goal of universal access by 2030, further progress is needed not only in grid link-ups but in off-grid systems using sources such as solar energy.

United Nations says “The number of people without access to electricity fell to around 1 billion in 2016 from 1.7 billion in 2000. The number of people gaining access to electricity each year is accelerating, thanks to strong successes in some countries, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Tanzania. Grid electrification has been the source of almost all energy access gained since 2000 and is likely to remain the most favourable option for many households, especially in more densely populated areas”

But Sub-Saharan Africa has been bedevilled with cases of grid collapse. Just last week in Nigeria, distribution companies announced the collapse of the country’s national grid amidst a nationwide blackout said “We would like to inform you of another system collapse on the National Grid which occurred at 5:10 pm today. We are monitoring the situation and will continue to provide updates.”

The electricity situation in Sub-Saharan Africa has been epileptic with Nigeria leading the race. Power in Nigeria has been in its worst moment since the past months as generation capacity dropped to 2,000 megawatts with about 14 power plants shutting down. Nigeria’s centralized electricity model have not yielded much for the West African country.

 “Decentralized, bottom-up solar-and-storage grids could not only reshape Africa’s energy future but carry important lessons for the next generation of thinking on utility business models globally, Benjamin Attia, an analyst at WoodMac, said

Electricity demand in Sub-Saharan Africa has doubled over the past 15 years and is expected to increase nearly eight-fold by 2050. The report by Wood Mackenzie said the growing demand is driven by these three fundamental-urbanization trends: population growth, rapid urbanisation, and structural economic transformation.

The report further attributed Africa’s long-standing electricity access problem to massive underinvestment in the region’s electricity infrastructure. It said with the right investments, Sub-Saharan Africa could potentially change the trajectory of electricity demand and supply, not only within the region but globally.

Now, the interesting part is that the declining costs of renewable energy, coupled with innovative business models, could make it easier to bridge the investment gap and provide reliable and affordable energy access across the region.

 

 

 

 

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Nigeria’s identity verification startup, Youverify takes expansion drive into Kenya

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Nigeria’s identity verification regtech startup, Youverify has taken its African expansion drive into Kenya after successfully launching its operations in Ghana, South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda.

The move into the Kenyan market with its full-cycle global compliance products, is coming after the startup raised $1 million in seed extension funding in August last year to take the total size of its round to $2.5 million.

Co-founder and CEO of Youverify, Gbenga Odegbami, who spoke at the launch of the platform in Nairobi, said having its products in Kenya was a long-held dream for him and his partners.

“Expanding our products and solutions to Kenya is a strategic move that has always been in the works. Having thoroughly studied the compliance landscape in Kenya, we believe the market is ripe for our superior technology.’’

‘’Expanding our product offerings to Kenya aligns perfectly with our vision to drive financial innovation on a global scale.

“As we bring our cutting-edge technology and expertise to the Kenyan market, we aim to revolutionize the way businesses approach compliance,” he said.

Founded in Nigeria in 2018, Youverify provides API for address and identity verification to several financial institutions in the country, as well as countries where it has its branches.

“Over the years, the company has added more Know Your Customer (KYC), Know Your Business (KYB), Know Your Transaction (KYT), Know Your Employee (KYE), Adverse Media Screening and Risk Intelligence Solution solutions to its offering,” Odegbami said.

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‘Anonymous’ cyber attackers target Senegalese govt websites

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The Anonymous hacking group has claimed cyberattacks on several Senegalese government websites in the past one week.

The group said it took down dozens of government websites for a second day on Saturday in Senegal amid months of tensions before a presidential election which has seen opposition figures hounded and arrested by the administration of President Macky Sall.

The @MysteriousTeamO account which claims it belongs to the Anonymous group, said on social media that it had targeted websites run by the presidency and those using the domain of the government, including the Defence and Health Ministries.

It also claimed to have hacked the site of the national carrier, Air Senegal, in a sweeping spate of attacks.

The @MysteriousTeamO account said the attack was in “solidarity” with Senegalese citizens and their right to freely choose their president.

Global internet monitor, NetBlocks said the attacks started at around midnight on Friday and had affected dozens of government websites, networks, and online services.

“There do appear to be intermittent restorations in service, however these have not been sustained and the attack is ongoing,” NetBlocks said.

The Senegalese government spokesman, Abdou Karim Fofana, who acknowledged the attacks, described them as a “distributed denial-of-service attack, designed to overwhelm the target with a flood of internet traffic, preventing the system from functioning normally.”

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