German energy company RWE and Indian power company Tata Power have partnered to explore the joint development of offshore wind projects in India.

According to RWE, India’s large coastline makes it an attractive market for offshore wind, and the MoU signed between the two companies will help exploit this market to reach India’s target of 30GW of offshore wind installations by 2030.

Sven Utermöhlen, CEO Wind Offshore of RWE Renewables, explains: “India has excellent wind resources, which can help to meet the country’s increasing energy demands. If clear regulations and an effective tender scheme are in place, we expect India’s offshore wind industry will gain a real momentum. RWE wants to be part of this development.”

Utermöhlen added: “With Tata Power, we have an outstanding and experienced partner at our side which is deeply rooted locally and shares our ambition to drive the growth of offshore wind in India. Combined with RWE’s 20 years’ track record in developing, constructing and operating offshore wind projects, we are well placed to supply green energy from offshore wind as competitively as possible for the Indian society.”

As part of the collaboration, RWE and Tata Power Renewable Energy Limited will conduct technical and commercial site assessments, as well as evaluate the Indian offshore wind supply chain to identify local strengths and areas for development.

Dr Praveer Sinha, CEO and Managing Director of Tata Power, said: “RWE is our ideal partner to support Tata Power’s plans to enhance and grow offshore wind business based on its global expertise in running and operating offshore wind projects. In view of the Indian Government’s heightened focus on offshore wind farms to address the country’s expanding electricity demands, the collaboration becomes even more significant.”

Australian energy company, Origin, has notified the Australian Energy Market Operator of its plans to retire the Eraring coal power station in August 2025, seven years earlier than planned.

Eraring is a 2880MW black coal plant on the shores of Lake Macquarie and became operational in 1984.

According to Origin CEO Frank Calabria, the move reflects the changing nature of the national electricity market, transitioning to cleaner energy sources. Furthermore, an early closure will remove a large portion of the Origin’s Scope 1 emissions.

“Australia’s energy market today is very different to the one when Eraring was brought online in the early 1980s, and the reality is the economics of coal-fired power stations are being put under increasing, unsustainable pressure by cleaner and lower-cost generation, including solar, wind and batteries,” said Calabria.

As renewables and storage become more cost-competitive, Origin is looking to incorporate them more in combination with their peaking power stations, ultimately ensuring a more economical cost of energy.

Origin plans to invest AUS$240 million (USD$173 million) into restoration and rehabilitation of the site, a plan that includes the installation of a 700MW battery, as well as additional renewable and storage capacity, including a potential expansion of the Shoalhaven pumped hydro scheme, located on the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia.

Origin also plans to re-skill employees and offer career support and redeployment into new roles, where possible.

The African Development Bank has approved the Desert to Power G5 Sahel Financing Facility covering Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

Through the facility, the Bank will commit up to $379 million in financing and technical assistance over the next seven years.

The Desert to Power G5 Financing Facility is meant to help the five countries adopt a low-emissions power generation pathway by using the region’s abundant solar potential.

Dr Kevin Kariuki, AfDB Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth said the innovative blended finance approach of the Desert to Power G5 Sahel Facility will de-risk, and therefore catalyse, private sector investment in solar power generation in the region. “This will lead to transformational energy generation and bridge the energy access deficit in some of Africa’s most fragile countries.”

The facility will encourage utility-scale solar generation through independent power producers and energy storage solutions.

The investment will be backed by a technical assistance component meant to enhance implementation capacity, strengthen the enabling environment for private sector investment and ensure gender and climate mainstreaming.

The aim is for the facility to help create 500MW of additional solar generation capacity which should facilitate electricity access to around 695,000 households.

It is expected that about 14,4 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent could be avoided over the lifespan of the project.

Desert To Power Initiative Taking Advantage Of Solar Power

The Board of the Green Climate Fund approved $150m in concessional resources in October 2021 to the facility, which is expected to leverage around $437m in additional financing from other development finance institutions, commercial banks and private sector developers.

The Global Center on Adaptation will provide technical assistance to strengthen adaptation and resilience measures undertaken in the facility as part of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme in partnership with the AfDB.

Dr Daniel Schroth, AfDB Acting Director for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: “The facility will also support the integration of larger shares of variable renewables in the region’s power systems, notably through the deployment of innovative battery storage solutions and grid investments.”

The facility will be implemented as part of the broader Desert to Power initiative, one of the AfDB’s flagship programmes.

The objective of the initiative is to light up and power the Sahel region by adding 10GW of solar generation capacity and providing electricity to around 250 million people in the 11 Sahelian countries by 2030.

Turning Niger’s Solar Potential Into Hydrogen

At the same time as the AfDB approving the G5 Financing Facility, the Government of Niger has signed an agreement with German energy solution provider Emerging Energy Corporation to explore and develop commercial green hydrogen projects in the landlocked West African country.

Emerging Energy Corporation will also invest in projects to decarbonise oil field operations and refineries in Niger through carbon capture technologies. It is envisaged that green hydrogen production in Niger will happen via electrolysis, using renewable power.

As per the agreement, both parties will investigate opportunities to enable demand for the product and also prepare Niger to become a hub for green hydrogen production in the region.

Power generation solutions company INNIO has signed an MoU with project developer Concord Renewable Energy to build four power plants across Malaysia fueled by palm oil waste.

Each plant will operate two INNIO Jenbacher high-efficiency biogas engines, collectively delivering more than 8MW of power to the grid.

INNIO has also signed a long-term service agreement for the Jenbacher Type 4 engines.

According to INNIO, the project aligns with Malaysia’s goal to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and increase renewables in the energy mix to 31% by 2025.

As part of the project, Concord Group and INNIO will focus on sustainable fuel sourcing. Methane gas emitted by existing palm oil mills will be reappropriated to produce power.

Concord Renewable Energy Sdn Bhd CEO, Datuk Khairuddin bin Tan Sri Mohd Hussin, said: “We look forward to continuing to work with INNIO’s advanced Jenbacher technology to help us meet growing energy demand while reducing emissions.”

The United Arab Emirates is ploughing money into drones, robots and other unmanned weaponry as autonomous warfare becomes more and more widespread — including in attacks on the Gulf country by Yemeni rebels.

Large, black drones with the orange logo of EDGE, the UAE’s arms consortium, were on display at this week’s Unmanned Systems Exhibition (UMEX), along with remote-controlled machineguns and other “smart” weapons.

The exhibition comes at a time of growing unmanned attacks around the region, including the January 17 drone-and-missile assault by Yemen rebels that killed three oil workers in Abu Dhabi, the first in a series of similar incidents.

“Autonomous systems are becoming ever more prevalent around the world,” Miles Chambers, EDGE’s director of international business development said.

“We are really heavily investing in developing our autonomous capability… as well as in electronic warfare and in our smart munitions. These are our three pillars.”

EDGE, an Abu Dhabi-based defence consortium that groups 25 Emirati firms, was formed three years ago but reached an estimated $4.8 billion in arms sales in 2020 — nearly all of them to the UAE government.

The group was ranked 23rd among the 100 top arms-producing and military services around the globe in 2020, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting Yemen’s Huthi rebels since 2015. Although it withdrew ground troops in 2019, it remains a key player in the grinding conflict.

EDGE’s most lucrative deals have included maintenance of military jets, worth almost $4 billion, as well as providing guided munitions at $880 million.