Yemisi Izuora/Ijeoma Agudosi
GE and Sinomach (China National Machinery Industry Corporation) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on clean energy projects.
The initiative is expected to double access to power in Sub-Saharan Africa where more than two-thirds of the population is without electricity.
The agreement marks a milestone for the partnership between GE and Sinomach, a leading diversified international industrial conglomerate.
The two parties already collaboratively delivered multiple infrastructure projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia, involving $3Bn investment in energy sector.
With the MOU, GE and Sinomach have agreed to enhance cooperation for projects in Africa’s clean energy sector
Jointly develop, invest and finance clean energy projects under the Power Africa initiative.
They will also collaborate on the Kipeto Wind Power Project to build an installed capacity of 102 megawatts (MW) for Kenya’s power grid as pilot project of agreed cooperation
Kenya is a power lacking country with 80 percent of her population without regular electricity.
To fill the gap, the country has set an ambitious target of producing 2,036MW of wind power by 2030.
The Kipeto Wind Power Project will be built in Kajiado, 80 kilometers south of Nairobi.
When completed, the Kipeto project will add 102MW of capacity to the Kenyan national power grid with the installation of 47 GE 1.6-100 wind turbines and 16 GE 1.6-82.5 wind turbines (each with the capacity of 1.62MW).
Mr. Ren Hongbin, Chairman of Sinomach states: “Sinomach is building core strength in technology and operations to speed up its transformation from a traditional State owned enterprise to a truly competitive global player.
Partnership with GE proves to be strategically valuable for our sustainable success in emerging market like Africa. It clearly outlines a new formula for US-China collaboration in 3rd country market.
It is our hope that we can bring the mutually beneficial partnership to a new level and inspire more successful collaborations between our peers from US and China.”
Rachel Duan, president and CEO, GE Greater China, said, “As the partner of choice for China infrastructure exporters, GE aims to forge win-win collaboration model to secure long term success across globe.
GE-Sinomach collaboration will cover broad spectrum of domains to allow our partner to truly benefit from GE’s technology, global outreach and execution insights. In a big picture, we hope the joint effort bring closer the globalization roadmaps of business in two countries.
Kipeto Wind Power Project is a part of Power Africa initiative, launched by the Obama administration in 2013. The plan aims to support the growth of Sub-Saharan region with double access to electricity in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania using clean energy.
GE is one of the founding private sector partners for the Initiative. At the project announcement in June 2013, GE committed to help bring online 5,000 megawatts of new electric generation capacity, in cooperation with the Initiative’s government and other private sector partners.