Southern African Power Pool
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The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) is a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Southern Africa under the auspices of the
Southern African Development Community The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana. Its goal is to further regional socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security coopera ...
(SADC). The members of SAPP have created a common
power grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...
between their countries and a common market for electricity in the SADC region.


Location

The secretariat of the 17-member country organization is located at 24 Golden Stairs, Emerald Hill, in
Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...
, the capital and largest city in
Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
. The geographical coordinates of the headquarters of SAPP's secretariat are .


Overview

The Southern African Power Pool has many long-term goals it wishes to achieve. One of the main goals is to increase the accessibility of electricity to rural communities. Another goal is to improve the relationships between the member countries. There is need to develop sustainable development priorities, and to co-ordinate the planning of electric power. Along with industrial productivity, electricity generation can assist in the
Southern African Development Community The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana. Its goal is to further regional socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security coopera ...
(SADC)’s mandate of poverty elimination across Southern Africa. Only 5 percent of rural areas in Southern Africa have access to electricity. Lack of electric power impedes their access to clean water, limits the availability of food, and constrains access to clean, sustainable sanitation. In 2010, SADC passed the Regional Energy Access Strategy and Action Plan, which aims to combine regional energy resources as a means of ensuring the entire SADC region has access to affordable, sustainable electricity. The plan’s goal is to reduce the number of people in the region without access to energy by 50 percent in the next ten years. Then reduce the remaining population by 50 percent in the next five years, and continue cutting it in half every five years until the region has universal access. The most recent developments to the Southern African Power Pool came between the years of 1995 and 2005, where multiple interconnections were added. In 1995, an interconnector that ran from South Africa to Zimbabwe was completed, a Mozambique-South Africa interconnector was fixed in 1997, a Mozambique-Zimbabwe interconnector was finished, and most recently two power lines connecting South Africa to Maputo were finished.


History

SAPP was founded in August 1995 at the SADC summit held in Kempton Park,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
. At that summit, member governments of SADC (excluding Mauritius) signed an Inter-Governmental Memorandum of Understanding for the formation of an electricity power pool in the region under the name of the Southern African Power Pool. Later, three other agreements were signed, including one between the respective electricity utilities in the member countries, another that lays down specific rules of operation and prices and the fourth agreement that spells out the operating procedures and guidelines. Power trading between regions started in 1950 after the signed agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. Other parts of the continent also started a power trading business until 1995. In 1995 SAPP was founded and it was the first power pool in Africa. Since then the SAPP influenced the energy market and started competitive energy markets such as a day-ahead market (DAM). Every year, each member contributes a certain amount of money to the group as pre-determined in the document that set up the Power Pool. Today, most of the money that funds the Pool comes from donors, such as
The World Bank The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Grou ...
and the
Development Bank of Southern Africa The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is a development finance institution wholly owned by the Government of South Africa. The bank intends to "accelerate sustainable socio-economic development in the Southern African Development Communi ...
.


Future plans

Currently being planned for future development is a Zambia-Tanzania power line, a Mozambique-Malawi power line, the fixing of the old Zambia power line, and the construction of a third
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hydropower station by means of the Western Power Corridor Project.


Members

Member Status The Botswansa Power Corporation, Electricidade de Mocambique, ESKOM, Eswatini Electricity Company, Lesotho Electricity Corporation, NAMPOWER, Societe Nationale d'Electricitite, Zesco Limited, and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority are operating members of the Power Pool. The Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi, Empresa Nacional de Electricidade, and the Tanzania Electricity Supply Company Ltd are the non-operating members of the Power Pool. The
Copperbelt Energy Corporation Copperbelt Energy Corporation Plc (CEC) is a Zambian electricity generation, transmission, distribution and supply company with operations in Zambia and Nigeria. The company is listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange (symbol: CECZ) Operations Zambia ...
is the only Independent Transmission Company of the Power Pool.


Challenges

Despite being the most advanced power pool ever developed in Africa, the SAPP has some challenges and shortcomings. Its takes money to keep the pool running and the SAPP does not have the funds to create new investments. The SAPP also suffers from lack of infrastructure across the continent along with lack of maintenance for the existing infrastructure. By 2007, peak demand began to exceed installed capacity. One major challenge is the lack of sufficient adequately skilled staff labor and the difficulty of retention of skilled workers. Power pools can only be sustained in areas with developed grid interconnections. The interconnection between some member states are inadequate. Trust between the members is of utmost importance.


Future Plans

Despite recent challenges, the SAPP have long committed goals that can help in its expansion and company’s growth. The following plans are investment projects, interconnected grid, electricity access, and competitive market. Investment projects that creates new revenue includes hydropower and clean coal power plant alternative over nuclear. They also plan to improve SAPP central grid to improve the link between North and South Africa regarding to the new alternative power plant, hydropower and clean coal. Interconnected grids can expand SAPP activities. Along with the current SAPP members, there are future plans to involve other areas such as Tanzania, Malawi and Angola. Electricity access would expand the use of electricity to more areas in order to make it accessible to new borders. Lastly, strengthen and regulating competitive markets plan that sets up new rules that help meets consumers and investors satisfaction.


Other African Power pools

There are five African Power Pools, (a) Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), (b)
Eastern Africa Power Pool The Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP), is a collaborative effort by eleven countries in Eastern Africa to interconnect their electricity grids and take advantage of excess capacity within the network and facilitate trade of electric power betwee ...
(EAPP) (c)
Central African Power Pool The Pool Energetique De L'Afrique Centrale (PEAC), also Central African Power Pool, is an association of ten Central African countries. The major aim of the association is to interconnect the electricity grids of the member countries in order to ...
(CAPP) (d)
West African Power Pool The West African Power Pool (WAPP) is a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Western Africa under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The members of WAPP are working for establishing a reliable ...
(WAPP) and
North African Power Pool The Comité Maghrébin de l'Electricité (COMELEC), also Maghreb Electricity Committee and North African Power Pool, is an association of five North African countries belonging to the Arab Maghreb Union (Union du Maghreb Arabe). The major aim of ...
(NAPP). The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the only country that is a member of three pools (SAPP, EAPP and CAPP). Burundi is part of EAPP and CAPP. Tanzania is a member of SAPP and EAPP. Guinea is part of CAPP and WAPP.


See also

*
Eastern Africa Power Pool The Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP), is a collaborative effort by eleven countries in Eastern Africa to interconnect their electricity grids and take advantage of excess capacity within the network and facilitate trade of electric power betwee ...
*
Central African Power Pool The Pool Energetique De L'Afrique Centrale (PEAC), also Central African Power Pool, is an association of ten Central African countries. The major aim of the association is to interconnect the electricity grids of the member countries in order to ...
*
West African Power Pool The West African Power Pool (WAPP) is a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Western Africa under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The members of WAPP are working for establishing a reliable ...
*
North African Power Pool The Comité Maghrébin de l'Electricité (COMELEC), also Maghreb Electricity Committee and North African Power Pool, is an association of five North African countries belonging to the Arab Maghreb Union (Union du Maghreb Arabe). The major aim of ...


References


External links


Website of Southern African Power Pool

East African Power Pool
{{Authority control Electric power infrastructure in Africa Electricity markets Wide area synchronous grids Organizations established in 1995 1995 establishments in South Africa Harare Organisations related to Southern Africa