Minigrid

Kenya’s government plans to build 137 solar minigrids across remote locations in the East African country. The project received $150 million in funding from the World Bank.

Discovery Battery’s new lithium iron phosphate battery system has a nominal voltage of 51.2 V and a capacity of 100 Ah. Up to six 5.12 kWh battery modules can be stacked in a single enclosure, and up to four enclosures can be connected in parallel for a total capacity of 120 kWh.

Rapidly deploying 5.2 GW of planned solar and storage in Puerto Rico, a possibility raised in a report by six national laboratories, would require an improvement in the Puerto Rico utility’s practices. A mandated procurement process has suffered delays at many steps.

PV integration in smart grids is a complex but highly relevant issue, with various aspects to be considered to develop different scenarios. Researchers in the IEA-PVPS Task 14 program are conducting a survey to collect opinions from peers in the PV branch to perform such an analysis.

While the climate summit held at Sharm El Sheikh last month prompted pledges of raised funding for solar lanterns and single-panel systems, the money allocated to date is woefully short of what has been estimated would be required to provide universal access to electricity this decade. Drew Corbyn of Netherlands-based global off-grid solar body GOGLA, outlines three urgent courses of action to accelerate access to electricity.

US researchers have unveiled a new way to speed up EV charging, while researchers in China have created a three-dimensional composite lithium anode to improve battery safety and efficiency.

An international research group has examined the structural barriers to addressing the solar e-waste problem in the Global South. They argue that the focus should be on repairing devices, rather than recycling them.

CrossBoundary EnergyAccess Nigeria has committed to invest $60 million in minigrid projects developed by Engie, in the largest such transaction in Africa. The projects will connect more than 150,000 people to electricity for the first time.

The African Development Bank has announced that European and US donors will provide $20 million of concessional loans to support pay-as-you-go solar companies in sub-Saharan Africa.

Indonesia will have to get to work installing more than 24 GW of solar this year – and every year – if the region is to achieve the 2.1 TW to 2.4 TW of photovoltaics Irena has estimated it will require to achieve a net zero carbon energy system by 2050.