RAERESA

Status of Energy in the COMESA Region

March 5, 2020 Willis Osemo
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Addis Ababa, Thursday, March 5, 2020: The total installed power generation capacity in the COMESA region is 92,00 megawatts (MW) with Thermal power dominating at more than 69% and Hydro (large and small) accounting for 30%.

This was disclosed during the 9th Annual General Meeting of the COMESA Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) that began today in Addis Ababa.

The Chairperson of RAERESA Dr Fredrick Nyang told delegates that the main challenge for many COMESA countries is that generation capacity is not enough to cover the nations own needs and allow for cross-border trade.

“Even though there are plans underway to improve the transmission capacity across borders, there is not yet enough transmission capacity to secure an unimpeded trade across the countries and regions,” he said.

Sixteen countries including Ethiopia, Burundi, Egypt, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Tunisia attended the AGM.

Ethiopian State Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy H.E Dr. Frehiwot Woldehana who opened the meeting observed that approaches are needed to increase generation capacity and minimize the current system losses of electricity.  He noted that Africa was losing 12.5% of production time as a result of chronic power outages thus holding back the continent’s potential for growth.

Citing recent studies, the Minister said the low levels of competitiveness of countries in the local and regional markets was due lack of adequate infrastructure in energy in the COMESA region.

“Our region is a paradox of energy, richly endowed with power generating natural resources of which only few are harnessed, thus resulting in severe power shortfalls. We must tap our indigenous resources so that we are not dependent upon imports of fuel to light our cities and power our growth.” the Minister said.

As a way forward, he said there is need to move and evacuate energy efficiently from areas of production and surpluses to areas of deficit, domestically or across borders by investing in transport corridors of energy trade through transmission inter-connectors and pipelines.

In addition, the Cape to Cairo electricity corridor is on course with the ongoing implementation of the Zambia-Tanzania-Kenya (ZTK) power inter-connector project. This project will interconnect the Southern Africa Power Pool and East Africa Power Pool, enhance and pave the way for a competitive regional power market.

Assistant Secretary General, Programmes in COMESA Dr Kipyego Cheluget told the meeting that the regional bloc will continue supporting energy security enhancement in the region by facilitating domestication of adopted energy regulation instruments.

“In particular, we are focusing on guidelines relating to renewable energy such as Feed-in-Tariff, Power Purchase Agreement, Public Private Partnerships, Joint Development of Projects, Framework on Off-Grid Electrification, and Best Regulatory Practices for renewable energy development, which COMESA recently developed and adopted,” he said.

In his remarks, the Chairperson of RAERESA, Dr Fredrick Nyang invited COMESA Member States that have not joined the regional association of energy regulators to do so, to enhance sustainability of the regional energy market, through a harmonized regulatory framework.

“RAERESA has started to assist the Associate Members, who are in the process of establishing their regulatory authorities. Those countries are namely Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Djibouti, Libya, Somalia and Tunisia.”

Regional Energy Experts Conducting Peer Review on Member States

March 4, 2020 Willis Osemo
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Addis Ababa, Wednesday, March 4, 2020: Energy regulatory authorities in countries that are members of the COMESA Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) will be going through peer review to ensure their operations are bench-marked against regional best practices

The first peer review is being conducted this week, from 4 – 6 March 2010 on the Ethiopia Energy Authority (EEA). The findings will be presented to the RAERESA Annual General Meeting (AGM) which will take place on Thursday and Friday this week in Addis Ababa.

A select team of energy experts from 13 countries that are members of RAERESA will be conducting peer reviews on the regulatory authority of the Member State that will be hosting the AGM of the regional association of regulators.

Member countries of RAERESA are those that have established energy regulatory authorities. These are Ethiopia, Burundi, Egypt, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Chief Executive Officer of RAERESA, Dr Mohamedain Elnasr said the peer reviews of energy regulatory authorities will enhance knowledge in regional best practice in regulating regional energy markets as well as strengthen co-operation with the other regulators within the region.

“It is envisaged that a sustained peer review process in the region will result in significant benefits for the region such as capacity building, information and experience exchange relating to promotion of renewable energy, regional power projects implementation and regulation, integration of gender perspectives, and management of the energy sector,” he said during the start of the peer review that began today in Addis Ababa.

The peer review will support the capacity building and information sharing through exposure to national, regional and international best practices; identify best practices to improve effectiveness of the energy sector; and take stock of tools developed and used by RAERESA in influencing the practices of national regulatory institutions in carrying out their oversight role.

In Ethiopia, a  team of five energy experts from the Member States was constituted to carry out the review over a period of three days. The final report will be published and circulated to all the relevant stakeholders as part of information and knowledge sharing of regulatory matters in the eastern, southern and the Indian Ocean region.

RAERESA is a COMESA institution whose role is to support Member States energy regulators build their capacity and information sharing; facilitate energy supply policy, legislation and regulations; inter-regional cooperation; and regional energy regulatory co-operation.

Presently, six COMESA countries are in advanced stages of establishing their national energy regulators. These are Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Libya and Somalia. The six  are currently associate members of RAERESA.

Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Attract Investments in Energy

October 10, 2019 Willis Osemo
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Djibouti, Friday, October 10, 2019: The past two decades have witnessed transformation of the electricity market in Africa following the gradual opening, liberalization and reform of national electricity markets. A fundamental component of the transformation has been the establishment of national regulatory institutions tasked with independently regulating and overseeing their respective electricity sectors.

With investors seeking transparency, predictability and good governance in sectors in which they operate, most African governments have made tremendous strides in recent years in establishing robust regulatory frameworks and institutions for their electricity sectors; however, progress has been uneven across the continent.

The present regulatory institutional outlook in the eastern, southern and Indian Ocean region (EA-SA-IO) is varied as some of the countries like South Africa Namibia, Kenya and Uganda have full autonomy over the energy sector, which exhibits a reasonable degree of commercialization or privatization.

In other countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique and Angola, energy regulators exhibit a semi-regulatory autonomy with other regulatory functions still vested with the Government, whereas there are no active regulators in Comoros, DR Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea and Libya.

In its quest to improve the energy sector, the project on Enhancement of a Regional Energy Market in Eastern Africa, Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean (ESREM/EA-SA-IO) is conducting national-level workshop on regulatory policy, autonomy and governance. The workshop are designed to map out the nature and level of assistance required by specific Member States in establishing national regulatory institutions.

The latest was a three days’ workshop conducted in Djibouti from 8 – 10 October 2019. It was attended by high-level officials from Ministries responsible for energy, (and other relevant government officials), utilities, consumer associations, and the academia in Djibouti.

Institutional frameworks

The main objective is for the target audience to appreciate the role and importance of establishing energy regulatory and institutional frameworks in supporting Governments’ long-term objectives of providing affordable and reliable energy to its citizens.

COMESA through its Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) is the lead agency in the implementation of the project.

In Djibouti, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry in charge of Energy Mr Mohame Kileh Wais, and his counterpart in the Ministry of Trade, Mr Ali Daoud, and COMESA Energy Economist, Mr Malama Chileshe who represented the Chief Executive Officer of the RAERESA addressed the workshop.

Mr Wais indicated that Djibouti’s Vision 2035 places high priority on refining the various governance structures in the energy sector which will tap into other sources of energy such as wind, solar, and geothermal.

In his remarks, Mr Malama observed that building strong and effective regulatory frameworks and institutions was one way of paving the way for investment flow in the energy sector.

“Investors look for transparent, fair and predictable environments for their investment,” he said noting that, even without autonomous regulators, Djibouti had taken major strides towards strengthening regulatory and institutional frameworks.

The ESREM/-EA-SA-IO project is a seven million euros initiative funded by the European Union under the 11th European Development Fund.

ESREM Supports Creation of Energy Regulator for Southern Africa

October 3, 2019 Willis Osemo
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Johannesburg, Thursday, 3 October 2019: The COMESA led project on Enhancement of a Sustainable Regional Energy Market for the Eastern Africa, Southern Africa and Indian Ocean (ESREM/EA-SA-IO) Region is supporting the establishment of an energy regulatory authority in Southern Africa.

This will be achieved by transforming the current Regional Energy Regulators Association of Southern Africa (RERA) to an authority to deal with regulatory issues relating to cross-border energy. The new Authority will be named SARERA (Southern Africa Development Community Regional Energy Regulators Authority). The transformation is expected to be complete by 2021.

Last week in Johannesburg, 3- 4 October 2019, ESREM brought together members of RERA for a two-day regional workshop to validate a study done to develop a framework and roadmap towards the transformation. In its current form as an association, RERA does not have a mandate to provide regulatory oversight over the regional energy market in SADC.

COMESA through the Regional Association of Energy Regulators of Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) is implementing the seven million European Union funded ESREM project to deliver, among others, the enhancement of Regulatory Capacity of the National Regulatory Authorities and strengthening capacity of the Regional Associations and power pools. These include RERA, RAERESA and the East Africa and Southern Africa Power Pools (EAPP and SAPP).

In the transformation of RERA, the role of ESREM-RAERESA is to guide the process.

At the workshop, various keynote speakers hailed the move to transform RERA as it was part of a study conducted to develop the Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP).

The Director General of the Department of Energy of South Africa Mr. Thabane Zulu observed that the SADC region had identified infrastructure development as a priority in developing the RIDMP, which is an opportunity for Member States to strike consensus on priority projects.

According to the study, the region faces the challenge of insufficient energy supply to serve increased industrial production and access. Despite the current interconnectivity achievements through the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), the study also revealed that, the region still faces several challenges with regard to energy delivery, access and price.

“The implementation of the RIDMP is key to unlock the full potential of our region gifted with vast and diverse energy resources such as hydro, coal, gas and solar through regional integration,” he said.

The Chief Executive Officer of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), Mr. Christopher Forlee said the transformation of RERA will expand cross-border trade in energy, promote investment and competitiveness of regional electricity trade.

In her remarks, the Vice chairperson of RERA and Energy Regulations Board of Zambia (ERB) Chief Executive Officer Ms. Langiwe Lungu expressed gratitude to the European Union (EU) for the support towards the implementation of the Project on Strengthening RERA in general and organizing this Validation Workshop in particular.

Senior Programme Officer at SADC, Mr. Moses Ntlamelle noted that the developments in the energy sector were critical as they have the potential to contribute to the regional integration, industrialization and reduction of poverty in the region.

Among the workshop participants were representatives of the Energy Regulatory Authorities and Power Utilities, Regulatory Institute of Electricity and Water Services of Angola, Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority, National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority of Tanzania, SADC Secretariat, SADC Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (SACREEE), Southern African Power Pool Coordination Centre, Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority and COMESA.