GOOGLE IS BACKING Africa’s largest wind power project, two years after investing $12 million in the continent’s largest solar power project.

This morning, at a conference in Washington, D.C., the tech giant announced its support for the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in northern Kenya, a project that could provide enough clean energy to power 2 million homes, representing about 15 percent of the capacity of the country’s power grid. The average wind speed at Lake Turkana is almost 25 mph, according to Google.

The move is Google’s 22nd investment in clean energy infrastructure, spanning a total of 2.5 gigawatts of power and more than $2 billion. Most of the company’s investment has been in the US, but Rick Needham, a Google director of energy and sustainability, says the company wants to promote clean energy in the developing world. “The fastest growing economies are here, and there’s a strong need for critical power,” he says of places like Kenya. “Economies are being held back because they don’t have enough power—and yet they have wonderful renewable resources. These nations can meet their future and growing energy needs by tapping into some of the best renewable resources in the world.”

At the same time, Google continues to buy vast amounts of clean energy to drive the massive computer data centers underpinning its online services. To date, Needham says, Google has purchased more than a gigawatt of power for its worldwide network of data centers, drawing on solar and wind. This places Google among the largest corporate buyers of clean energy, according to the Business Renewables Center.

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Pretoria – The City of Tshwane has allegedly procured coal that does not ignite for its Pretoria West power station.

A senior employee stationed at the power station has told News24 that tons of coal has been shelved and new ones ordered after it was discovered it does not ignite.

“The coal that was brought in does not burn. Right now it has been put aside as new one [coal] is being delivered,” he said.

The city has admitted to the coal not igniting, but would not comment on why the coal was not returned to the supplier.

The source said the coal was bought from Lurco Coal, one of Eskom’s suppliers. It is alleged that this was the second batch of deficient coal supplied by the same company.

City spokesperson Lindela Mashigo confirmed they had procured coal from the company. He explained that the station uses high calorific value (CV) of coal. Mashigo said in order to be able to get the right quality of coal mixture, the company was requested to deliver a certain quantity to be tested at the station.

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Most infrastructure investments on the continent are in the energy sector, but power plants and transmission lines across Africa, most of which were erected in the 1950s and 1960s, operate today at just a fraction of installed capacity due to insufficient maintenance and lack of modernisation.

Across the continent, infrastructure is either disrupted, damaged or non-existent. However, investment in energy infrastructure is critical to the continent reaching its economic potential and exploiting its current growth trends.

Meeting the demands for Africa’s critical energy infrastructure was in the spotlight at the annual Infrastructure Africa Business Forum, which concluded on Wednesday at the Sandton Convention Centre. According to the Africa Progress Panel (APP) in its recent “Power, People, Planet” report, Sub-Saharan African governments should be aiming to increase electricity generation capacity tenfold and achieve universal access to electricity by 2030. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recommends that Africa raise energy generation by 4% per year to 2040.

Sub-Saharan Africa has only 90GW of electricity generation capacity and energy constraints are costing the continent 2%-4% of GDP per year. But some progress is evident. There are now 130 independent power providers in sub-Saharan Africa and about 27 private equity investments were made in energy between 2010 and 2013, valued at $1,2bn. This boost is partly due to President Barack Obama’s Power Africa initiative, increased energy cooperation between Europe and Africa, Chinese project finance for large-scale power projects, and South Africa’s renewable energy programme.

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Students at Douala University have come up with an ingenious way to combat the Cameroonian city’s mounting waste management problem. They’re behind a pioneering scheme that produces a new eco-friendly form of coal based on everyday household waste – from old banana peels to leftover food.

Douala, in western Cameroon, is a city with a big waste management problem. Douala sprawls over several hills and its mountainous geography makes it difficult to get waste bins and maintenance workers in and out of some neighborhoods. It isn’t rare to come across rotting piles of banana peels, vegetables or other rubbish thrown into the street waiting to be collected.

But to combat the rising tide of food waste flooding Douala’s city streets – and protect the environment – a group of university students have come up with a unique type of coal that’s 100% eco-friendly.

“We carried out some studies on the region around Douala, and what we found was alarming: 79% of the population used wood or charcoal as a source of domestic energy. The problem is that both energy sources contribute to the region’s ongoing deforestation. Mangrove wood is such a sought-after commodity that the trees are slowly being wiped out. They’re either cut down or burnt in the forest to make charcoal.  In addition to that, Douala also has these giant compost heaps that pollute the city. We started wondering if we could kill two birds with one stone by coming up with a new source of energy made from this waste. We rolled up our sleeves, grabbed our wheelbarrows, and visited as many markets and private individuals as we could to collect everything from banana peels to used coffee grains in order to create a new kind of environmentally-friendly coal.

The process takes a full day. At first, the waste must be dried in the sun in order to remove as much water as possible. Then we have to put the leftover material in ovens in order to reduce it to ashes, and finally, process the ash until all becomes a seamless whole.

At the start, the people who we collected the waste from didn’t understand what we were going to be able to do with it. But when we came back with the coal and told them, “that’s your trash”, they couldn’t believe their own eyes!”

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