The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) supplies most of the world’s cobalt, but exporting semi-finished or finished products rather than raw materials would better help the country capture the value of the metal used in high power lithium-ion batteries.
A US$57.67 million loan towards the development cost of large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects will be made to South Africa’s public electricity utility Eskom by the African Development Bank.
Global equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has supplied hybrid energy solutions technology including 7.5MW of battery storage to the microgrid powering a gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Solar and solar-plus-storage systems will be installed at two nickel mines in Western Australia for BHP, a supplier to Tesla, while a Rio Tinto ilmenite mine in Madagascar will be powered by a solar-wind-storage hybrid plant.
A tender has been opened for a large-scale solar-plus-storage project in Togo, West Africa, by the developer of a mixed use industrial park which has issued a call for expressions of interest (EOI).
Mozambique’s energy and mineral resources minister attended a ceremony to mark the start of construction on the first solar project in the country to be paired with utility-scale battery energy storage.
US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) funding has been allocated to feasibility studies for large-scale battery storage projects co-located with wind power in Senegal, west Africa and Mozambique, in southeastern Africa.
German developer and EPC contractor juwi has secured a deal to design, supply and build a solar-storage hybrid project at an off-grid gold mine in Egypt.
An off-grid hybrid energy system at Fekola, a gold mine in Mali, Africa, has gone online incorporating solar PV, battery storage and the site’s existing fossil fuel generators, project partners Baywa R.E and Suntrace have said.
