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Online Reporter

THE Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) has made significant contribution to development of power infrastructure which has increased trade and regional integration among Sadc member states.

The SAPP was created in August 1995 at the SADC summit held in Kempton Park, South Africa, when member states signed an Inter-Governmental Memorandum of Understanding for the formation of an electricity power pool in the region.

A revised Inter-Governmental MoU was signed by Ministers responsible for Energy in the SADC Region on 23 February 2006 to allow private sector players to become members of SAPP, and now has 22 members across 12 Sadc states.

Officiating at the 64th  SAPP Management Committee Meeting in Victoria Falls recently, Energy and Power Development Minister July Moyo said in the last 10 years, a total of 14 546 GWh were traded on the SAPP competitive markets resulting in the exchange of US$986 million among members.

He said trading on the competitive electricity market is continuing and SAPP has five products namely the Day Ahead Market, Intra Day Market, Week Ahead Market, Month Ahead Market, and Balancing Market which was launched in April 2022.

“From the time that the SAPP was created, several transmission projects have been successfully completed including key transmission projects such as the 400kV Matimba-Phokoje-Insukamini interconnector. This line was commissioned in 1995 and is one of the flagships projects in the region as it opened for trading of electricity from as far to the North as the DRC and as far South as Lesotho and Namibia through Zimbabwe- Botswana and South Africa.

“Numerous electricity trading transactions continue to be traded along this cross-border transmission line which gave birth to the operationalisation of the Southern African Power Pool in 1995. The SADC Region’s economies are continuing to grow in fulfilment of the SADC industrialisation thrust and hence the region needs more power,” said Minister Moyo.

He said currently nine out of the 12 mainland Sadc countries are inter-connected while work is underway to connect the remaining three namely Angola, Malawi and Tanzania.

Minister Moyo said the interconnection of Malawi to Mozambique is under construction and the project is expected to be commissioned in September this year while construction of the Zambian portion of the Zambia – Tanzania interconnection will start this year.

“The completion of these projects will result in the 12 mainland states of Sadc being electrically inter-connected marking a significant milestone allowing the region to fully benefit from regional integration in the power sector.

“These market products are providing opportunities for power utilities to trade among themselves over and above the bilateral contracts that exists. It is quite remarkable to note that, the SAPP competitive market is being used by various utilities to meet their short and medium-term power requirements and providing opportunity for those with excess power to generate additional revenue,” said the Minister.

Zimbabwe is a leader and top developer in power generation in the region, with the country implementing various power project including renewable energy nationwide to increase capacity from about 2 1000MW to about 6 000MW.

Zesa Holdings hosted the meeting whose purpose was to look at various issues from planning, project preparation, operations, markets and environmental areas.

Minister Moyo said apart from the transmission inter-connectors, the SAPP has achieved other milestones including establishment of a Co-ordination Centre in Harare in 2000 as an International Development Organisation and nerve centre of SAPP.

Others include the Markets Sub-Committee (MSC) and Day Ahead Competitive Electricity Market (DAM) implemented in 2009 as a step towards migrating from a cooperative power pool to a competitive power pool.

There is also the custom-made market trading platform, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition/Energy Management System (SCADA/EMS) Project, setting up of a SAPP Project Advisory Unit, and purchase and setting up of the SAPP offices in Harare.

Minister Moyo said the region has huge energy resource potential in the form of coal, gas, nuclear, hydro and renewable energy that need to be exploited in an economically sound and sustainable manner for the benefit of the whole region.

He bemoaned the impact of climate change that has over the years affected hydro power generation at Kariba dam due to reduced water allocation, hence affecting availability of electricity in the whole region.

“I need to register my appreciation for how the Southern African Power Pool is assisting in meeting some of the power shortfalls of the Sadc countries through the regional electricity power market clearly illustrating the benefits of regional integration.

“Electricity is one of the critical driving forces for economic development and you are at the centre of making it work. As we go into the future, the huge and diverse power generation resources in our region need to be tapped.  I hope that as experts in the power sector you will come up with solutions that will look at risk mitigation for such scenarios. I therefore call upon you as experts in the field to continue to apply your minds and bring to the table solutions that will keep the lights on, commerce ticking, industry running and agriculture flourishing even in these challenging environments,” he said.

The Minister bemoaned prevalence of vandalism of transmission infrastructure and said Ministers responsible for Energy were prioritising strategies to combat the scourge.

He said the industry faces insufficient generation capacity to meet the growing power demand where the current generation capacity shortfall is close to 4 000 MW, lack of adequate transmission and distribution infrastructure, high transmission and power distribution losses, limited regional trade of power due to transmission constraints, and the the effects of climate change on generation production.

Minister Moyo said the region can save up to US$37 billion in net present value terms if coordinated planning is followed.

He said SAPP is also working on the Regional Transmission Infrastructure Financing Facility to unlock transmission constraints through promoting the blended financing and development of new transmission infrastructure.

He called for more private sector participation riding on changing regulatory environment, and commended some independent power producers for development of renewable energy projects.

He urged member states to invest more in electricity supply infrastructure for additional power generation.

This SAPP committee meeting came soon after the 10th Africa Partnership Summit held in Washington, US where the critical role of energy in driving economic growth was underscored while the US government expressed commitment to partnering with Africa to eliminate energy poverty.