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Key Takeaways | African Markets and Opportunities for Cross-Border Investments in Renewable Energy

On March 30, 2022, Carl Fleming and Emeka Chinwuba, partners in McDermott’s Energy and Project Finance Practice Group, hosted Dr. Abdelilah Chami, head of sustainability Northern & Central Africa at Enel Green Power, and Jay Katatumba, investment director at Africa50 Infrastructure Fund, for a lively discussion on the renewable energy space in Africa and cross-border investments.

The transition to renewable energy in Africa has progressed impressively over the last decade, with many countries working to increase renewable energy capacity in recent years. Forecasts by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) indicate that with the right policies, regulation, governance and access to financial markets, sub-Saharan Africa could meet up to 67% of its energy needs by 2030. This is reflected by the fact that average annual investments in renewable energy grew ten-fold from less than half a billion dollars during the 2000 – 2009 period to $5 billion during 2010 – 2020.

Below are key takeaways from the webinar:

1. Development Financial Institution (DFI) participation in Africa’s power market is primarily driven by its mandate to make the cost of electricity more affordable, increasing access to electricity and improving the reliability of its power supply.

2. Energy access and consumption in Africa has global ramifications as we look to trade, commerce and development, future demographic trends and geopolitics with respect to energy costs and access.

3. From a power sector policy standpoint, each African country should be taking a holistic view when looking at the specific in-country and regional needs for energy, the entire value chain, related and existing infrastructure, local capabilities and local regulatory and governance frameworks.

4. In accessing various African jurisdictions for investment opportunities, private sponsors are focused on predictability, highest risk weighted returns, existing infrastructure and the whole value chain proposition for a specific asset.

5. Private sponsors are also looking for opportunities where projects are bankable and structured with very limited reliance on subsidies or other credit support from the host governments.

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Key Takeaways: Decoding the Future Value of Behind-the-Meter Load for Cryptocurrency and Computing: A Conversation with Compute North Executives

On May 5, McDermott Will & Emery partners Ed Zaelke and Chris Gladbach hosted P.J. Lee, Dave Perrill and Jeff Jackson of Compute North to discuss the relationship between the rapidly expanding computing and cryptocurrency industries and the power sector.

Below are the key takeaways from the webinar:

  1. Compute North’s business model focuses on the power of distributed computing in cryptocurrency mining and large-scale data processing for uses with non-essential, flexible demand. By responding to real-time demand response signals and shutting down in less than 10 seconds, these distributed computing facilities can also participate in the demand response market and act as ancillary service resources.
  2. Modular computing facilities (similar to modular energy storage) allow distributed computing loads to be located nearer to generation, reducing congestion and curtailment risks and providing new customers for merchant facilities and other stranded power producing assets.
  3. Compute North’s distributed computing facilities are targeted at facilities as low as 20 MW in size, but are considering facilities of up to a full buildout of 1 GW.
  4. Although Compute North’s distributed computing currently requires higher use factors (and likely imports from the grid or separate generation assets), one of its long-term goals is to match the generation of a particular power producing facility.
  5. Successful cryptocurrency mining and other flexible distributed computing needs require computing facilities to be the lowest marginal cost producer. By providing services at 1/15th the cost of hypercomputing technologies, new data processing work cases are likely further increasing the demand for and power of distributed computing.

To access past webinars in this series and to begin receiving Energy updates, including invitations to the webinar series, please click here.




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