Minigrid

With the World Bank celebrating the success of a solar home system installation program which has provided electricity to an estimated 20 million people, an NGO has floated a near-$12 million environmental investment which could drive further PV capacity.

The five solar-plus-storage facilities will be located in Zambézia and Nampula provinces.

The government of the South American nation is seeking to electrify with solar-plus-storage several remote communities through eight different tenders.

The former need not necessarily relate to conventional lithium-ion batteries, however, as a recent webinar staged by Solarpower Europe and EU body GET.invest discovered.

The novel methodology can be used for 71 countries located across ‘sun belt’ areas of east Asia, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. The model relies on 2014 and 2015 geo-referenced datasets in various formats and spatial resolutions, as well as on a population dataset based on global human settlements (GHSL) and World Bank national-level estimates of electrification.

Winch Energy has announced the project, which it hopes will be a significant bridgehead towards building $100 million worth of off-grid systems within two years, alongside Franco-Japanese partner Neot Offgrid Africa.

Abe Cambridge, chief executive and founder of solar cell-level, crowdfunding-based PV leasing business The Sun Exchange has spoken to pv magazine about the company’s project pipeline and its focus on bringing affordable clean power to schools.

Off-grid PV has become a much more viable solution than diesel power generators to bring electricity to Russia’s remotest regions. Furthermore, solar-plus-storage is able to deliver with no interruption 24 hours per day and seven days per week, while fuel availability means diesel power can only ensure between four and seven hours per day.

An overview of the state of solar across the continent by trade body the Africa Solar Industry Association has highlighted a patchy policy landscape where clean power ambitions are often not followed through.

Kenyan utility KPLC wants to retrofit 23 diesel mini-grids by adding wind and solar power generators. PV is the only option available for 21 of the selected sites.