African energy ministers, investors, others to meet at DLO Africa Power Roundtable in London

By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme

African energy ministers, project developers and investors will meet at the DLO Africa Power Roundtable in London, organised by DLO Energy Resources, a South African based power company.

Linda Mabhena Olagunju, Founder & CEO of DLO Energy disclosed this during a media chat with our correspondent in Lagos.

According to her, Africa Power Roundtable was launched to unlocking the investment opportunities and resolving the major challenges hindering the power sector to grow.

“I think it is very important to clarify that the Africa Power Roundtable is an industry event managed by investors and the idea is to bring together the private sectors as well as government to think about ways which we can unlock Africa’s power sector as we are all affected by the power situation in the continent.

“We will not be able to grow our economies if we continue in this trajectory where there is a slow output of power projects in different countries and where there is a stop program of some power projects. For example, like South Africa where there was a two and half year break.

“The big thing there is how do we work together as private sector and government to make sure that our people have access to power. One thing i think the Africa Power Roundtable does which other events don’t do is we bring tangible solutions because we are investors in the sector.

“It isn’t a talk shop but we are genuinely there to find solutions around the issues in the power sector.

“A number of creative ideas have emerged from the Africa Power Roundtable. For example, listing of power energy specs, collaborations have began from the event whereby developers are partnering to do more and we are getting a lot of Nigerians coming to the conference to speak about the opportunities and the people are seeing Nigeria as a place to do business not a scary place. We are trying to have something that will lead to tangible results not just a talk shop.

“The message of this year’s event is ‘Enough talking; lets get doing’. There have been a lot of discussions. How many times have the Nigerian power sector reform have been discussed? and How many times have South Africa talked about its Integrated Resource Plan?. How many times have there been discussion about Renewables been a viable source of energy for the continent? but what are we actually doing? The theme for me is ‘Enough talk; Africa is time for Action,’ she added.

The DLO Africa Power Roundtable is scheduled to hold on 30th-31st, October, 2018 at Norton Rose Fulbright in London.

The event is a platform that hosts various gatherings of government, key investors and stakeholders in Africa’s energy sector with the objective of encouraging investment.

Now in its 7th year the platform has hosted a number of events in Africa and has had success in bringing together key sector players and stakeholders.