About African Energy Limited

African Energy Limited (AEL) is Australian public company focused on the development of two integrated power projects in Botswana to meet the increasing demand for power in the southern African region

Independent power producers like AEL are necessary to provide generation capacity to meet the current substantial supply deficits in the region and the forecast escalating demand.

In the last 15-months, the power shortages in southern Africa have worsened significantly. In Zambia the water levels at Lake Kariba early this year were at the lowest levels seen in over 20-years, causing restrictions in hydro power generation. In South Africa a further deterioration in Eskom’s coal-fired fleet availability has resulted in widespread and persistent load shedding. In Botswana ongoing problems with the Morupule power plant has resulted in regular load shedding. The generation problems in the major power producers have caused severe power disruptions across the southern African region with blackouts and widespread load shedding on a regular basis in many countries. This regional power crisis, which in February was declared as a ‘State of Disaster’ in South Africa, is driving strong interest in the Sese Project.

Sese is one of very few fully permitted, large scale, power generation projects in the SAPP and is therefore one of very few options for quickly developing new generation at significant scale.Whilst investment in new coal generation is considered difficult in many western countries, the reality is that coal remains the main fuel for baseload power in most countries and particularly in the fast-growing economies of India and China. In sub-Saharan Africa the predominant domestic fuel sources remain charcoal and animal dung. The harvest of charcoal has devastating impacts on the environment and is the leading cause of deforestation. The use of these fuels for cooking indoors is well documented as one of the major health issues for Africa, with respiratory diseases from particulate inhalation being one of the leading causes of death amongst women. Providing low-cost electricity is essential to addressing these issues and lifting living standards more generally. 

These issues are widely recognised in Africa and the opportunity to use established technology such as coal fired power generation to address such problems is widely seen as a greater imperative than reducing CO2 emissions. Once electricity is widely available and living standards increase then other more expensive forms of renewable power generation may be introduced, as has happened in developed countries.