Africa Power Supply (APS) is an organization that supports governments and electric companies across Africa in addressing climate change and achieving Sustainable Development Goals. With over 50 years of experience in power generation, transmission, distribution, regulation, mini-grids, and financing, APS seeks to transform Africa's energy landscape in a way that supports climate change mitigation, sustainable development, and the establishment of circular economies.
Energy in Africa presents a complex landscape with both challenges and opportunities
Decentralized renewables like solar PV and mini-grids play a vital role in reaching underserved communities.
African nations support transitioning to cleaner, more sustainable energy, driven by initiatives like the African Renewable Energy Initiative.
While fossil fuels remain important, the energy mix is diversifying with growing renewable adoption
Investments in transmission, distribution, and regional cooperation are essential to improving access and reliability.
Hydropower is a key electricity source, but vulnerable to climate change and environmental issues.
Africa has vast solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass potential. Countries like Morocco, Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa are leading renewable energy deployment.
Energy poverty, inadequate infrastructure, financial constraints, and climate impacts require a comprehensive, collaborative approach to address.
Despite abundant renewable resources, over 580 million Africans lacked electricity access in 2019.
The evolving African energy landscape presents immense renewable potential and opportunities for sustainable development with the right investments and partnerships.
There are many benefits that can be realized through implementing consistent waste management practices. There are a significant number of benefits that can be realized directly because of establishing WTE facilities.
By converting waste into energy, the WtE process helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional waste disposal methods such as landfilling and open burning. Emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from landfills can be minimized through waste-to-energy technology.
WTE can recover valuable resources from waste streams such as metals, glass, and plastics through processes such as separation and recycling. This saves resources and promotes a circular economy approach by reusing materials that would otherwise be lost in landfill.
Waste-to-energy facilities require less land area than landfills, making them a more land-efficient option for waste management, especially in densely populated areas with limited land use. Masu
The development and operation of waste incineration plants creates employment opportunities in various fields such as engineering, construction, operations, and maintenance. Additionally, WtE projects can boost local economies through investment, revenue generation, and waste management services.
One of the main advantages of waste-to-energy recovery is that the electricity or heat is generated from waste. These wastes are disposed of in landfills or incinerated without energy recovery. This process contributes to the diversification of energy sources and reduces dependence on fossil fuels, thereby contributing to energy security and sustainability.
Some types of waste, such as certain plastics and organic materials, are difficult to recycle efficiently. WtE technology provides a viable solution for recovering energy from these non-recyclable waste streams while minimizing environmental impact
Waste incinerators can provide a stable and predictable supply of power or heat. This is especially beneficial in areas with intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, helping to balance the power grid and improve energy reliability.
WTE facilities help manage and reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills, reducing the potential for groundwater contamination, soil contamination, and greenhouse gas emissions from waste decomposition. Helps reduce environmental problems
Overall, waste-to-energy recovery provides a sustainable and integrated approach to waste management, energy production, and environmental protection, contributing to the transition to a more circular and resource-efficient economy. Establishing WTE facilities throughout Africa will take a unique and collective approach to many existing development issues and will contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals:
Currently energy access levels vary across sub-Saharan Africa but are around 21% when averaged across countries, with levels higher in urban areas. Similarly, waste collection and disposal is sparse resulting in piles of waste heaped in open fields that cause sanitation issues, provide feeding ground for disease and result in additional greenhouse gas emissions.
With high aspirations we provide details regarding our journey to provide renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa:
Conceptual design is the first phase of the engineering process after a positive result from the feasibility study. It brings together all disciplines to brainstorm and table ideas to solve the problem and accomplish the goals. It broadly outlines the function and form of the project and includes interactions, processes strategies and experiences.
Preliminary design is the next phase and involves the engineering required to define the infrastructure needs of the project. It bridges the gap between the concepts defined earlier and the detailed design process to produce construction documentation. It can include developing schematics, diagrams and layouts in addition to early project configuration.
Detailed Design is the main design phase where each part of the project is defined, sized and configured with standard market available components so that they work together to achieve the project goals. Often this stage is broken out by discipline with many independent parameters for each individual discipline but also many areas of overlap where communications and collaboration are required. The output of the detailed design is construction ready documentation from which a facility can be constructed and made to work to achieve its design goals.
This is the phase where the facility is actually constructed – ground is broken, foundations are poured, building erected, equipment is installed, wires are run and terminated. Each discipline has its own set of internationally approved standards to work towards and will test their work according to those standards. This includes pressure testing of piping, x-ray inspection of welds, point to point testing and polarity verification for electrical and controls among other items. The end of the construction phase is a handover to a testing and commissioning crew.
After the facility is built and assembled each of the individual pieces need to be tested to ensure that they are in working order. After each section of the facility is tested then they start to ensure that the pieces work together. This flows into the commissioning stage for as the testing is completed and sections of the facility are verified to be working then they need to test run under real conditions. Only after sections of the facility have been tested in conjunction with each other and all issues have been addressed will we enter the startup phase. The end of commissioning is a handover from the commissioning crew to a joint startup procedure typically completed in conjunction with the operations staff.
Startup is a phase where, after knowing that systems work on their own and in conjunction with other systems that we try and work the facility as a whole while making adjustments and refinements along the way. In this manner a number of systems will be required to be tested including the startup procedures, the “in operation” functions and the normal and emergency shutdown systems. The end of the startup verifications and procedures is a handover to operations. This handover will typically trigger the start of the PPA and enforcement of the contractual obligations.
After starting up the facility, it will need to be run for a time period to ensure that there are no issues and that all of the sub-systems are functioning as required. Once the facility has reached commercial operations means that it is capable of fulfilling its contractual obligations. This is the point at which the PPA comes into effect and the project shifts to operations.
The evolving African landscape presents immense renewable energy potential and opportunities of sustainable development and support of circular economies. We have been fortunate to establish important partnerships to move the project forwards but are always looking for partners, to develop additional projects, who align with our goals and philosophies.
Energy in Africa presents a complex landscape with both challenges and opportunities
%2C%20Italy%20copy.jpg)