Oil and gas major TotalEnergies has acquired a 28.3% stake in Uganda’s 250 MW Bujagali hydropower plant, according to a company statement.
This follows an agreement the French firm signed with Scatec, a Norwegian renewable energy company, to attain 100% of its subsidiary SN Power. The latter holds interests in renewable hydropower projects in Africa, through a joint venture (51% SN Power) with Norfund and British International Investment (BII).
The Bujagali plant currently contributes more than 25% of Uganda’s peak electricity demand.
In February 2022, Philippe Groueix, General Manager TotalEnergies, Uganda and Ruth Nankabirwa, the Energy Minister signed an MoU committing the company to developing renewable energy projects
Total rebranded to TotalEnergies in 2021 to signify the shifting of some of its focus to renewable energy sources. “We want to become a sort of green energy major,” Patrick Pouyanné the company chairman and CEO said, then.
Now with the acquisition of SN Power and its renewable hydroelectric assets and projects in Africa, Pouyanné believes the company is demonstrating its ambition to contribute to the continent’s energy transition
“In particular, we are delighted to be able to become a player in hydro power in Uganda, a country where we are also developing a major oil project,” he said.
TotalEnergies E&P is currently developing the Tilenga project in the Albertine oilfields in western Uganda. The project consists of 6 fields and 426 petroleum wells across 31 locations and is expected to produce up to 190,000 barrels of oil a day.
The company also has a stake in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project.
To date, TotalEnergies has interests in a number of hydropower projects with a gross capacity of 3.7 GW worldwide. Its acquisition of SN Power will also see it get minority stakes in two projects under development in Rwanda (260 MW) and Malawi (360 MW).
Terje Pilskog, CEO of Scatec, expressed his confidence in TotalEnergies’ ability to further develop the projects going forward.
President Yoweri Museveni meets with SN Power officials in 2016
SN Power’s exit in Uganda coincides with the closure of Norway’s embassy in the country. The shareholders in Bujagali have over the last two years been troubled by a Parliamentary decision that stopped Uganda’s government from meeting its debt obligation to the power project.
TotalEnergies’ ambition to get to net zero by 2050, includes building a cost-competitive portfolio combining renewables (solar, onshore and offshore wind) and flexible assets (gas plants, storage) – with plans to expand its gross renewable electricity generation installed capacity from 22 GW in 2023 to 35 GW in 2025 and more than 100 TWh of net electricity production by 2030.
What is your reaction?
