POWER June 2022 - 11

GLOBAL MONITOR
maintenance services for the new power
plant, in a 20-year contract beginning
upon completion of construction and
the plant's commissioning.
New Solar Power Facility Online
in Mozambique. French-based independent
power producer Neoen has officially
commissioned the 41-MW Metoro solar
power plant in Mozambique. The project
is coming online about two years after
being inaugurated in 2020 by Mozambique
President H.E. Filipe Jacinto Nyusi.
The solar farm, which will supply electricity
to the national grid, is located in the
northeastern province of Cabo Delgado.
The plant includes 121,500 solar panels
covering a 341-acre site. It was built by
Efacec Power Solutions, a Portuguese
energy and engineering company. The
plant will feed power to the grid as part
of a 20-year power purchase agreement
with Mozambique's state-owned company,
Electricidade de Mocambique. A
€40-million ($42.25 million) loan was secured
by Neoen through Proparco, the
private-sector financing division of the
French Development Agency, for the
construction of the project.
Wärtsilä Builds Major Plant for Production
of Bio-LNG. The technology
group Wärtsilä will supply equipment
for a plant in Germany that will be the
world's second-largest facility capable
of liquefying bio-methane and synthetic
methane from renewable energy sources
to produce carbon-neutral transportation
fuel. When operational it will
have a capacity of about 63,000 tons of
Bio-LNG (liquefied natural gas) per year.
The contract for the plant was signed
in March 2022 by German energy company
REEFUELERY GmbH, a joint venture
of Erdgas Südwest GmbH and
avanca, a company focused on sustainable
energy and logistics solutions. The
plant will be located in Burghaun near
Fulda, Germany, on a site with direct
access to the MIDAL, one of the most
powerful gas pipelines in Germany.
The central location enables optimum
supply to the Alternoil filling stations,
which are owned by the avanca group.
The plant will utilize biomethane from
communal and agricultural waste materials
as feedstock. The biomethane is
subsequently liquefied and delivered to
the Alternoil filling station network as
the climate-neutral fuel REEFUEL (BioLNG),
which can be used in any LNGfueled
vehicle, including heavy-duty
transport trucks. The plant is expected
to become fully operational during the
first quarter of 2024.
June 2022 | POWER
Agreements Reached for Green
Hydrogen Production in Middle East.
Renewable energy producer Masdar
has joined with Hassan Allam Utilities
to produce green hydrogen in Egypt's
Suez Canal Economic Zone. Egyptian
officials approved the production deals
in late April. The contracts involve several
local and international companies,
including Emirati Company Masdar, the
General Authority of the Suez Canal
Economic Zone (SCZone), the Sovereign
Wealth Fund of Egypt (TSFE), the
Egyptian Electricity Transmission Co.
(EETC), and the New and Renewable
Energy Authority (NREA). Masdar will
implement its project in partnership with
Hassan Allam Utilities, the Cairo-based
subsidiary of Hassan Allam Group. The
two companies said they plan to establish
facilities in the Suez Canal Economic
Zone to convert 4 GW of clean electricity
into green hydrogen via electrolysis. Masdar
said it chose Egypt for the investment
mainly due to the country's potential for
renewable energy, including solar and
wind. Masdar and Hassan Allam in the
first phase of the project will build facilities
to produce 100,000 tons of e-methanol
annually, by mixing carbon dioxide
and hydrogen. The companies said they
would expand their capacity to 480,000
tons of hydrogen annually by 2030.
Kosovo Plans Pumped-Hydro Storage
Project. The Energy Regulatory
Office (ERO) of Kosovo is reviewing an
application to build a 250-MW pumpedhydro
storage facility in the country. The
ERO in late April said the project is one
of four planned for construction by Eurokos,
a Kosovo contractor. Eurokos
signed a grid connection agreement with
Kosovo's transmission system operator
KOSTT in 2020 for the pumped-hydro
storage project, which is to be sited
near a KOSTT substation near Prizren, in
southwestern Kosovo. Reports have estimated
the cost of the project at about
€300 million ($317 million), with another
€27 million ($28.5 million) needed to upgrade
local transmission infrastructure
to serve the project. The other three
projects being reviewed by the ERO are
biomass, wind, and run-of-river hydro
facilities, with total generation capacity
of about 50 MW. Kosovo's government
is supporting a buildout of the country's
infrastructure, including roads, bridges,
and energy projects. Officials in March
announced plans to build a battery energy
storage system (BESS) with a capacity
of more than 200 MWh to help
the country deal with an ongoing energy
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crisis. Part of the BESS project will be
funded from a $234 million grant from a
U.S.-based aid agency.
BESS Project
Unveiled
for New
South Wales. Australian renewable energy
company Maoneng in early May released
details of a proposed energy hub
that would include a 550-MWac solar
farm, along with a 400-MW/1,600-MWh
BESS in regional New South Wales. The
project is being designed to address
the regional energy supply, as well as
the grid stability needs of the National
Electricity Market (NEM). Construction
of the solar farm and BESS could
begin next year and is expected to take
18 months, with the project completed
in 2025. The installation is expected to
have a 35-year lifecycle. The hub is proposed
for a location south of Merriwa,
in the Upper Hunter Shire Council area,
about 110 miles northwest of Newcastle.
The solar array is sited on about 1,900
acres, and would include about 1.3 million
photovoltaic solar panels mounted
on single-axis trackers, plus associated
buildings and infrastructure. It would also
involve the construction of a new substation
directly connecting to the NEM via
TransGrid's existing 500kV transmission
line that runs along the south of the site.
Investment Supports Renewable
Energy in Colombia. IFC, part of World
Bank Group, in early May said it was investing
$10 million in the form of preferred
equity in Vatia, a Colombian electricity
retailer and aggregator. The investment is
targeted for renewable energy development
in Colombia. IFC also said it would
support Vatia's effort to obtain financing of
as much as $36 million in long-term debt.
The agreement is IFC's first engagement
with a retail power aggregator globally.
The investment will allow Vatia to acquire
greenfield solar assets and strengthen its
capital position, expanding and diversifying
its generation capacity in Colombia. It is
part of Vatia's effort to help Colombia replace
thermal power generation and reach
the country's climate goals, which includes
reducing about 55,000 tons of CO2
equivalent
emissions each year. In addition, IFC's
investment will enable smaller businesses
and commercial and industrial users to
implement energy efficiency plans and
additional savings. As part of its energy
policy, aimed at ensuring energy security,
low prices, and reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, Colombia wants to receive at
least 25% penetration of its energy from
renewable resources by 2030. ■
-Darrell Proctor is a senior associate
editor for POWER.
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POWER June 2022

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