In early September, the Southern African Power Pool’s (SAPP) Annual Meeting in Zanzibar, Tanzania, brought together SAPP member utilities and external partners. Under the theme “Driving Energy Security through Regional Integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC)”, the stakeholders aligned on current activities and future milestones.
GET.transform presented the ongoing progress with the SAPP Generation and Transmission Master Plan which is being developed with SAPP and was followed by a discussion with participants. GET.transform´s continued partnership with SAPP is made possible through the Accelerating the Energy Transition in Africa (ENGAGE) project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Further notable partners such as the World Bank and AUDA-NEPAD also contributed to the conference. SAPP’s Market, Planning, and Environmental Committees presented updates, drivers and difficulties relating to their current work.
During the meeting, stakeholders shared the importance of cooperation and regional integration for the future development of the power sector and expressed their ambition to strengthen cooperation between SAPP member states. Discussions highlighted the need to overcome challenges to advance the interconnected regional power market to support a more integrated African electricity market.
The Annual SAPP Meeting occurs bi-yearly with all SAPP members. GET.transform is also supporting the SAPP New Markets project by exploring new market products through feasibility studies. GET.transform will continue to help SAPP with the Market Sounding Event on 21- 22 October, which will convene SAPP, Market Committee representatives, partners and private-sector stakeholders in Johannesburg, South Africa.
