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Peter Fraser
Former Head of Gas, Coal and Power Markets Division.
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Martin Tav
Former Data Development, Management and Visualisation Officer.
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China’s Official Energy Finance in Emerging and Developing Economies Case 4. TFC Solar PV project in South Africa
Project overview and impact South Africa faces significant challenges regarding electricity reliability. The lack of investment, coupled with increasing demand have led to chronic load shedding, with household and industrial consumers affected. Energy-intensive sectors, such as ferrochrome smelting, face rising operational costs, production losses and growing pressure to reduce emissions in line with national and international climate objectives. To address power shortages, the South African government, since 2023, has allowed independent power producers to build power plants above 100 MW and sell electricity directly to private customers without an issued generation license.The Tubaste Ferrochrome (TFC) solar PV power…
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Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 Executive summary
Demand for key energy minerals continued to grow strongly in 2024. Lithium demand rose by nearly 30%, significantly exceeding the 10% annual growth rate seen in the 2010s. Demand for nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earths increased by 6‑8% in 2024. This growth was largely driven by energy applications such as electric vehicles, battery storage, renewables and grid networks. In the case of copper, the rapid expansion of grid investments in China has been the single largest contributor to demand growth over the past two years. For battery metals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite, the energy sector accounted…
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Energy and AI Energy demand from AI
What is a data centre? Artificial intelligence (AI) model training and deployment occur mainly in data centres. Understanding the role of data centres as actors in the energy system first requires an understanding of their component parts. Data centres are facilities used to house servers, storage systems, networking equipment and associated components that are installed in racks and organised into rows. This IT equipment, and a range of auxiliary equipment required to keep it in working order, comprise the following:Servers are computers that process and store data. They can be equipped with central processing units (CPUs) and specialised accelerators…
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Deniz Ugur
Consultant.
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Key Questions on Energy and AI Executive summary
The AI and energy nexus continues to evolve rapidly The largest technology companies are contributing to a surge in data centre investment, as their capital expenditure exceeded USD 400 billion in 2025 – and is expected to jump by another 75% in 2026. Capital expenditure of just five technology companies is now larger than global investment in oil and natural gas production. Many jurisdictions are seeing project pipelines accelerate dramatically, although not all projects will come to fruition. Those that are moving forward are doing so at pace: the IEA’s unique satellite-based tracking shows that “artificial intelligence (AI) factories…
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Patrick Crittenden
Director, Sustainable Business Pty Ltd..
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Dr William Ruto
President of Kenya.
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Valeria Arroyave Cardozo
Project Manager. Valeria Arroyave Cardozo is a Project Manager at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), where she leads the Energy Efficiency for Livelihoods in Africa (EELA) Regional Project. The initiative focuses on transforming markets for energy-efficient appliances and services through enhanced policies, increased investments, and the development of sustainable local value chains.Since joining UNIDO in 2021, she has contributed to global efforts in sustainable cooling, energy efficiency, and the critical minerals supply chain, supporting the broader clean energy transition. Previously, Valeria spent five years at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), specializing in climate transparency and strengthening national capacities to meet climate commitments through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting.She holds an engineering degree and a Master of Public Administration and Sustain...
