Kibo Energy, an Africa-focused power project company, signed a five-year deal to deploy 1,000MW of alternative energy in Southern Africa as load-shedding continues to hamper local economic growth.
The JSE-listed group penned the deal with Austrian-based Enerox, which manufactures and distributes vanadium redox flow batteries under its CellCube brand.
Kibo Energy received the conditional rights to market, sell and deliver CellCube’s products in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) where Kibo will target ICT towers, gated communities, shopping centres and commercial parks with systems ranging from 40kWh-2,000kWh.
“The growing energy market in the Sadc and particularly the energy starved South Africa, makes the case for energy storage more viable,” Kibo Energy CEO Louis Coetzee said in a statement on Tuesday.
Stage 3 load-shedding, or removing 3,000MW from the grid, continued on Tuesday as Eskom said it has planned maintenance on 1,904MW of power and 17,255MW isn’t available because of breakdowns. Eskom warned on Monday there is a high risk of rotational power cuts continuing until Friday as the struggling state-owned power utility battles to bring generation units back online while suffering new outages.
Kibo Energy, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and has a secondary listing on the JSE’s AltX, shifted its focus to energy from mineral exploration and development in 2018 and announced its move towards renewable energy in 2021.
The group, valued R178.9m on the JSE, said last year that the investment climate for fossil-fuel projects has become challenging, especially for smaller companies,which has underpinned its pivot towards renewable energy in the UK and SA.
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