ALER speaks at events in June: AEF and 1st International Renewable Energy Forum in Angola
ALER was invited to participate as a speaker at two events this month, the Africa Energy Forum (aef 2019) and the 1st International Renewable Energy Forum.
aef2019
Aef 2019 took place between 11 to 14 June at the Lisbon Congress Center and ALER’s Executive Director was a speaker in the panel "Portugal’s Partnership with Lusophone Africa", along with the Director of Industry, Commerce & Energy of Cape Verde, Rito Évora, the Secretary of State for Energy of Guinea Bissau, João Saad, the Executive Director of SOFID, Bernardo Ivo Cruz, the CEO of Mota-Engil Africa, Manuel Mota, and the Partner of Morais Leitão, Ricardo Andrade Amaro.
In her speech, Isabel Cancela de Abreu began by describing the history of energy cooperation among CPLP countries, highlighting the support of the former Portuguese Carbon Fund, now the Environmental Fund, to the renewable energy atlas and 50 solar villages in Mozambique, the CPLP Energy Ministerial Meetings held in 2015 and 2017, where Ministers decided to create the energy network of CPLP, and the 1st Energy Conference for Development of the CPLP that took place in 2015.
She then highlighted the opportunity to share experiences and knowledge among all the African Portuguese-speaking Countries (PALOPs), listing some topics in which each country stands out in terms of renewable energies.
She clarified the role of ALER in the cooperation among all PALOPs in renewable energies, taking advantage of the fact that all Energy Ministries are members as well as relevant companies, linking the public sector and the private sector, strengthening capacity coordination and intervention of the sector, reinforcing the importance of providing and disseminating information – something that ALER has been doing through national reports and international conferences – and finally the support to the creation of National Renewable Energy Associations.
As a final note, the Executive Director of ALER also mentioned the need and opportunity for the PALOPs to keep up with current energy transition trends, ie, to move from (1) very low electrification rates, such as 13% in Guinea Bissau, 29 % in Mozambique, and 35% in Angola, to universal energy access by 2030 aligned with the SDG7; (2) fixed and generous feed-in tariffs to competitive tenders already implemented in Portugal and Cape Verde and foreseen for Mozambique by the end of the year; (3) high price of renewable energy technologies that are now at competitive prices; (4) centralized to decentralized generation; and (5) utilities' monopoly to private sector participation in generation projects.
1st Angola International Renewable Energy Forum
A week later the 1st Angola International Renewable Energy Forum was held in Luanda, on June 19, organized by the Private Investment and Export Promotion Agency (AIPEX) in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
The main objective of this event was to promote actions aimed at attracting investments in the renewable energy sector namely Solar, Hydro, Biomass and Wind.
Isabel Cancela de Abreu participated in the panel "What are investors looking for? - Success stories in the World and in Africa" alongside Wiliam Zimmern from British Petroleum (BP), Nuno Gil from Eaglestone, Abias Huongo from AEnergy and Sérgio Filipe from Siemens.
This time, as requested by the moderator, the Executive Director of ALER focused on the options for renewable energy use and legislation that Angola could apply based on the best practices of the African experience and the other Portuguese-speaking countries.
On this last point, Isabel Cancela de Abreu presented the proposal of the revision of the Mozambique electricity law focusing on the simplification of the concession process, promotion and encouragement of a greater participation of the private sector, and the sustainability of the electricity sector financial model. She also presented Decree-Law No. 54/2018 of Cape Verde concerning the micro-production regime, focusing again on the simplification of the procedures for small installations and on the calculation of the value of the electricity sales tariff and its payment by deduction on the energy consumed bill in the same period, with a credit valid for a period of one year.
To see the presentations of this Foum click here.