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Kieran Whyte

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Kieran Whyte is a partner in the Baker McKenzie's Johannesburg office. He has over 25 years' experience working in South Africa and Africa, with particular focus on energy and infrastructure projects. Kieran represents project sponsors, developers, contractors and lenders in complex greenfield and brownfield developments, advising on citing, permitting and regulatory concerns. He has advised on numerous first-in-kind projects associated with the South African government's Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme. Kieran is experienced in all aspects of project development and is recognized in his field by legal directories including Chambers and Legal 500.

As an essential component of South Africa’s energy transition, the production, transport, storage and use of green hydrogen, has been the subject of numerous policy updates and public and private sector commitments in the country, especially in the last year. The timeline of developments is not expected to slow down as South Africa zeroes in on solutions to its energy crisis that enables it to also address climate change and deliver on its decarbonization targets.

South Africa received the positive news on 10 June 2021 that the threshold for self-generation power project licenses would increase to 100 MW. This is a welcomed and long-awaited development in a country that has been plagued by power supply challenges, which have had a significant impact on the private sector and are contributing to the impediment of much-needed economic growth in South Africa.

As corporates continue to be challenged, to develop and deliver on sustainability goals, and seek to hedge electricity prices in an extraordinarily volatile market, global corporate PPA volumes continue to soar despite the economic fallout caused by COVID-19. With the global market for corporate PPAs rapidly evolving and becoming more…

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has resulted in mass production shutdowns and supply chain disruptions due to port closures in China, causing global ripple effects across all economic sectors in a rare “twin supply-demand shock”. With South Africa having just reported its first cases of COVID-19, Africa is beginning to feel its…