Ms Lungile Mashele is currently the energy specialist for South Africa’s DFI, DBSA, which operates throughout sub-Saharan Africa. She has experience in working for different multinationals across a wide spectrum of energy projects.

She has worked in oil and gas, renewables, coal, nuclear and hydro projects which have been located in West, East and Southern Africa. Some of her notable projects whether under development, construction or complete are:

• Area 1 and Area 4 LNG (Mozambique)
• Ghana Powership (Ghana)
• Temane Transmission (Mozambique)
• EDM Rehabilitation Programme (Mozambique)
• Imaloto Coal (Madagascar)
• MARENA standards and norms (Mauritius)
• Maamba (Zambia)
• Kafue Gorge Lower (Zambia)
• MINEA Transmission Programme (Angola)
• Cenpower (Ghana)
• Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme 20+ projects (RSA)
• Lauca (Angola)
• Eskom Facility (South Africa)
• Interconnectors (BOSA, ANNA, MOZISA)

During her assignments she has interacted with high level delegations from business magnates, utility executives, government ministers, academics and fellow DFIs.

Following South Africa’s commitment to reducing their carbon emissions, the department of energy embarked on an aggressive plan to rollout energy efficient and renewable technology to reduce electricity demand increase generation capacity respectively. In this capacity Lungile worked with government in developing the programme approach, advising IPPs and preparing them for bid submission, preparing the socio-economic aspects of the bids by visiting project sites, identifying communities and potential projects as well as engaging stakeholders.

Ms Lungile’s current job entails technically appraising energy projects from deal screen, project preparation, coverage, transacting and monitoring and evaluation. She appraises a project on the technical aspects relating but not limited to the following: resource, location, technology, fuel supply, logistics, procurement, EPC, O&M, risks, PPA, ancillary activities, supporting infrastructure, economics, costs etc.

She also interacts with lenders technical advisers and manage their output and deliverables in order to disburse. This may take the form of meetings, document reviews or in most cases actual project site visits.

She has also worked on UN GEF projects which require an element of climate financing and carbon offsetting; these projects are focused on renewable technologies, lighting products and carbon offsetting. Ms Lungile has been part of multi-disciplinary teams that prepared ‘prodocs’ for submission to various UN committees for financing. One of her most recent such projects was preparing a ‘prodoc’ for an energy efficient lighting project in South Africa.

Her assignments have taken her across the world – She has either worked in the following countries or have conducted a study tour: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Korea, China, Japan, Turkey, Madagascar, DRC, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda and Gabon.

She holds qualifications in economics and econometrics; insolvency law; cost engineering as well as BSc Honours and Masters degrees in energy. She will be sitting for her Energy Risk Professional (ERP) board exams in May to obtain certification. Being one of the foremost energy economists in South Africa, she was requested to lecture energy economics at the BSc Honours level by the University of Johannesburg in a part time capacity. She is also a council member at the South African Association for Energy Economics.

Ms Lungile has written numerous position papers on various issues related to energy, one of these papers was submitted to form the post 2015 Consensus. She has presented at a number of conferences throughout Africa on matters relating to energy – most notably are Africa Utility Week (AUW), Africa Energy Indaba and iPad Rwanda. She also writes regularly for newspaper publications and feature on news programmes such as eNCA discussing energy issues. In 2016, she formed part of the AUW advisory board along with other energy and water sector professionals from across Africa. She was nominated by AUW for a Future Leader Award and she is one of the 2017 African Power Elites as voted for by my peers.