Maldives to turn to solar for outer islands

The Indian Ocean island nation, which has been a prominent voice in the global calls to combat rising sea levels, will get technical assistance from the Asian Development Bank to draw up a tender for 20-30MW of photovoltaic generation capacity.

The International Renewable Energy Agency estimated, from non-governmental sources, the Maldives had 15.152MW of off-grid solar generation capacity at the end of 2020.

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The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will help the government of the Maldives tender for 20-30MW of solar generation capacity, to be installed in 1-2MW arrays across 20-25 of the state's outer islands.

Floating solar could be set to contribute to the installations, with the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Technology having stated the panels will be a mixture of ground-mounted, rooftop and “near shore lagoon” systems.

A pre-Christmas announcement on the ministry website stated the ADB will provide technical assistance in holding a tender for the public-private partnership solar “hybrid” systems which will help reduce the nation's dependence on diesel as the Maldives government aims for carbon neutrality this decade.

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A source close to the tender assistance plan told pv magazine the hybrid element of the solar arrays refers to a plan to add energy storage in a separate stage of development outside of the solar tender, which is expected to be opened around the middle of the year.

This copy was amended on 06/01/22 to add extra details about the tender assistance.

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