Economy
African Utility Week to Showcase Continent’s Business Openings
By Dipo Olowookere
The award-winning African Utility Week, taking place from May 16-18, 2017, in Cape Town, will showcase how the continent is coming up with innovative, home-grown solutions to its energy and water challenges and how these are creating exciting and lucrative opportunities for utilities and industry suppliers alike.
Experts from respected partners in the industry such as the World Bank, KPMG, Power Africa, Huawei, GE, Shell, SAP and leading African utilities will head up the more than 7000 power and water professionals from more than 80 countries, including 30 African nations, who will gather for African Utility Week.
But this year also kick-starts a specific focus on a new trend in the industry: namely smaller, community scale off-grid projects that are starting to make a real difference in the development of the continent.
“The power and energy landscape in Africa is undergoing significant change” says Evan Schiff, African Utility Week event director, adding that current trends include “the availability of private investment for power and energy projects, the fast development of energy storage, renewable energy is becoming cheaper, gas that is an increasingly attractive mode of power generation in Africa, and that in the next 10 years, nuclear will become an increasingly important mode of base-load power generation.”
The investment, trade and development opportunities in the sub-Saharan African electricity sector are estimated at $835 billion of capital investment, $490 billion for generation capacity and $345 billion for infrastructure.
Community scale projects are another important emerging trend in the sector. “Utility-scale developments are decreasing,” says Ahmed Jaffer, Chairman of KPMG in South Africa and the Head of Power and Utilities, “while we see a lot more of community-sized generation projects. Businesses and communities are also showing interest in becoming less dependent on the national grids.
“In rural Africa, especially, the economics of expanding the national grids do not make sense; hence there is a significant trend towards mini-grids and other off-grid solutions.”
Alongside the long-running African Utility Week, a new platform for community scale projects, Energy Revolution Africa, will be launched in May this year.
Energy Revolution Africa will provide a unique forum for solution providers to meet with the new energy purchasers such as metros and municipalities, IPPs, rural electrification project developers and large power users, including mines, commercial property developers and industrial manufacturers. The latest innovations and projects in the sectors of renewables, future technology, energy efficiency, micro/off-grid and energy storage will be showcased.
Speaker highlights at African Utility Week include Lionel Zinsou, Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Benin, member of the West African Energy Leaders Group and investment banker; Matshela Koko, Acting CEO, Eskom, South Africa; Lazarus Angbazo, President and CEO of GE Energy Connections SSA; James Stewart, Global Head of Major Projects (Power and Utilities), KPMG; Bob Lockhart, Vice President of Cyber Security of the Utilities Technology Council; Subha Nagarajan, Managing Director for Africa, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), USA; Ambassador Tebogo Seokolo, Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); and Lucio Monari, Sector Manager for Africa Energy Group, World Bank.
The 17th annual African Utility Week is the leading conference and trade exhibition for African power, energy and water professionals who will have the opportunity to meet over 300 suppliers of services and technology to the industry.
The expo includes a record number of country pavilions, including from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, South Africa, China, Czech Republic, Taiwan and India.
Along with multiple side events and numerous networking functions the event also boasts a five track conference with over 300 expert speakers.
The conference programme will once again address the latest challenges, developments and opportunities in the power and water sectors: ranging from generation, T&D, metering, technology and water.
The African Utility Week expo offers an extensive technical workshop programme that are CPD accredited, free to attend, hands-on presentations that take place in defined spaces on the exhibition floor. They discuss practical, day-to-day technical topics, best practices and product solutions that businesses, large power users and utilities can implement in their daily operations.
More side events as part of the African Utility Week platform include:
African Power Finance & Investment Forum: Financiers and project owners will hear from expert speakers who will identify the key trends impacting project finance in regional energy markets with updates on and insights into market opportunities, sources of capital, financing instruments and access to project finance. A featured session on regional power integration will explore new methods of developing cross-border power projects on a PPP basis, explore the opportunities for investors, and show how regional power integration can substantially save capital investment costs.
The Gas-to-Power World Congress reflects the continuing transformation of the energy ecosystem in Africa and beyond. Gas and renewables are perfect partners to help address an array of future energy challenges, including climate change, energy security and energy finance, currently three of the world’s largest and most important challenges. The event will look at new business and investment opportunities in gas-to-power, energy infrastructure, FSRU, LPG and LNG.
The Utility CEO Forum is held as a 3-day by invitation only board meeting alongside African Utility Week, where the men and women who lead and guide Africa’s power and water sectors discuss the path of transformation. Discussions centre on areas of co-operation, development plans and the advancement of regional centres of excellence throughout Africa.
The Nuclear Power Africa Conference features expert speakers who will address the myths and realities, latest technologies, regulatory and financing challenges and the economic spin offs created by a nuclear new build programme. Nuclear stakeholders and prospective suppliers will gain first hand insights into prospects for new jobs, training programmes, and the business opportunities created by the localisation of the supply chain of a nuclear new build.
The fourth edition of the African Utility Week Power Industry Awards brings together 800 of Africa’s most renowned power and water industry professionals. The Power Industry Awards is the leading gathering to recognise, reward and celebrate the successes of Africa’s power and water sectors during 2016/17.
Africa Utilities Technology Council: Telecommunications/ICT conference track programme to be presented that will cover topics such as: IT/OT convergence, IP networks and utility telecoms network performance measures. The AUTC content will continue in three dedicated sessions – one each in the T&D, Metering and Water tracks of the main strategic conference.
Site visits – these capture practical insights and demonstrate real world case studies of innovative technology combined with a unique experience of South African hospitality. Locations include the Bokpoort CSP plant, Eskom Sterrekus substation, Biomimicry Genius of Space project in Langrug, Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, Africa’s only nuclear power plant and a tour of Cape companies that are shining examples with regards to renewable energy and efficiency including HoHotel Verde, Black River Park and Cape Brewing Company.
Apart from KPMG’s diamond sponsorship, industry stalwarts EPG, GE, Huawei, Landis+Gyr, Lucy Electric, Ontec and Shell are platinum sponsors while Aberdare Cables, Conlog, Oracle Utilities, SAP, SBS Tanks and Vodacom have already confirmed their gold sponsorships.
African Utility Week and Energy Revolution Africa is the flagship energy event organised by the multi-award winning Spintelligent, leading Cape Town-based trade exhibition and conference organiser, and part of Clarion Events Ltd, based in the UK. Other well-known energy events by Spintelligent are Future Energy Nigeria (formerly known as WAPIC), Future Energy East Africa (formerly EAPIC), Future Energy Uganda and Future Energy Central Africa. Other industry-leading events organised by Spintelligent are DRC Mining Week, Kenya Mining Week, Nigeria Mining Week, Agritech Expo Zambia, Property Buyer Show, African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit and Eduweek.
Earlier this year, Spintelligent won four major awards at the ROAR Organiser and Exhibitor Awards, which honour excellence in the exhibition and events industry on the continent and were organised by the Association of African Exhibition Organisers (AAXO). African Utility Week won for Best Trade Exhibition 6001-12000 sqm category (joint winners with the World Travel Market).
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The acquisition of the Bullet brand portfolio from Sun Mark has been completed by Champion Breweries Plc, a statement from the company confirms.
This marks a transformative milestone in the organisation’s strategic expansion into a diversified, pan-African beverage platform.
With this development, Champion Breweries now owns the Bullet brand assets, trademarks, formulations, and commercial rights globally through an asset carve-out structure.
The assets are held in a newly incorporated entity in the Netherlands, in which Champion Breweries holds a majority interest, while Vinar N.V., the majority shareholder of Sun Mark, retains a minority stake.
Bullet products are currently distributed in 14 African markets, positioning Champion Breweries to scale beyond Nigeria in the high-growth ready-to-drink (RTD) alcoholic and energy drink segments.
This expansion significantly broadens the brewer’s addressable market and strengthens its revenue base with an established, profitable portfolio that already enjoys strong brand recognition and consumer loyalty across multiple markets.
“The successful completion of our public equity raises, together with the formal close of the Bullet acquisition, marks a defining moment for Champion Breweries.
“The support we received from both existing shareholders and new investors reflects strong confidence in our long-term strategy to build a diversified, high-growth beverage platform with pan-African scale.
“Our focus now is on disciplined execution, integration, and delivering sustained value across markets,” the chairman of Champion Breweries, Mr Imo-Abasi Jacob, stated.
Through this transaction, Champion Breweries is expected to achieve enhanced foreign exchange earnings, expanded distribution leverage across African markets, integrated supply chain efficiencies, portfolio diversification into high‑growth consumer beverage categories, and strengthened presence in the RTD and energy drink segments.
The acquisition accelerates Champion Breweries’ transition from a regional brewing business to a multi-category consumer platform with continental reach.
Bullet Black is Nigeria’s leading ready-to-drink alcoholic beverage, while Bullet Blue has built a strong presence in the energy drink category across several African markets.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Emerging market fintech firm, M-KOPA, has announced plans to deepen its reach in Nigeria to the South South and South East regions, starting with Edo this year, after providing N231 billion in credit to over 1 million customers in the country.
The firm released its first Nigeria-focused Impact Report, which showed that Nigeria is M-KOPA’s fastest-growing market and fastest to reach the milestone.
Since its foray into the Nigerian market in 2019, M-KOPA has been working to dismantle barriers to financial inclusion by providing flexible smartphone financing and digital financial tools that align with how people in the informal economy earn and manage their money.
It operates in six states in the country, including Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo, among others.
The report highlights the company’s contribution to income generation, digital inclusion and economic opportunity for Every Day Earners across the country.
The report showed that M-KOPA has enabled 290,000 first-time smartphone users, while 56 per cent of agents accessed their first income opportunity through the platform.
It showed high income and livelihood gains among its users, with about 77 per cent of customers leveraging smartphones or digital loans obtained through the platform to generate income, indicating that access to financed devices is directly supporting micro-entrepreneurial activity and informal sector productivity.
Furthermore, 75 per cent of users report higher earnings since gaining access to M-KOPA’s services, suggesting measurable improvements in personal revenue streams. On the distribution side, 99 per cent of agents disclose increased earnings, reflecting positive spillover effects across the company’s value chain.
In addition, 81 per cent of long-term customers state that their household expenses have improved, pointing to enhanced financial stability and better consumption smoothing over time.
Speaking on the report, Mr Babajide Duroshola, General Manager, M-KOPA Nigeria, said, “Nigeria represents extraordinary potential, and we’re proud that it has become M-KOPA’s fastest-growing market. Our Impact Report shows that when Every Day Earners gain access to the right digital and financial tools, they use them to create stability and long-term progress for their families. This is about access that unlocks opportunity and sustained prosperity.”
On its expansion plans Nigeria-wide, the M-KOPA helmsman said, “Many of the states we are considering are already similar to the ones we are currently in proximity… So, there is proximity and similarity between these states, and that’s what we are going to do, starting with Edo.”
He noted that as M-KOPA Nigeria continues to expand, the focus remains on ensuring more everyday earners gain access to the digital and financial tools they need to build resilient, prosperous futures in Nigeria’s rapidly digitising economy.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The ban on the export of raw shea nuts from Nigeria has been extended by one year by President Bola Tinubu.
A statement from the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, on Wednesday disclosed that the ban is now till February 25, 2027.
It was emphasised that this decision underscores the administration’s commitment to advancing industrial development, strengthening domestic value addition, and supporting the objectives of the Renewed Hope Agenda.
The ban aims to deepen processing capacity within Nigeria, enhance livelihoods in shea-producing communities, and promote the growth of Nigerian exports anchored on value-added products, the statement noted.
To further these objectives, President Tinubu has authorised the two Ministers of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, and the Presidential Food Security Coordination Unit (PFSCU), to coordinate the implementation of a unified, evidence-based national framework that aligns industrialisation, trade, and investment priorities across the shea nut value chain.
He also approved the adoption of an export framework established by the Nigerian Commodity Exchange (NCX) and the withdrawal of all waivers allowing the direct export of raw shea nuts.
The President directed that any excess supply of raw shea nuts should be exported exclusively through the NCX framework, in accordance with the approved guidelines.
Additionally, he directed the Federal Ministry of Finance to provide access to a dedicated NESS Support Window to enable the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to pilot a Livelihood Finance Mechanism to strengthen production and processing capacity.
Shea nuts, the oil-rich fruits from the shea tree common in the Savanna belt of Nigeria, are the raw material for shea butter, renowned for its moisturising, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties. The extracted butter is a principal ingredient in cosmetics for skin and hair, as well as in edible cooking oil. The Federal Government encourages processing shea nuts into butter locally, as butter fetches between 10 and 20 times the price of the raw nuts.
The federal government said it remains committed to policies that promote inclusive growth, local manufacturing and position Nigeria as a competitive participant in global agricultural value chains.
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