Maldives

The Maldives has initiated a 20 MW solar tender, with plans to distribute the capacity across 20 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 planned capacity is expected to be hybridized with diesel power generators across 14 islands.

The government of the archipelago is tendering the deployment of two big batteries, with capacities of 24 MW/24 MWh and 16 MW/16 MWh, respectively, to store renewable energy for 22 islands.

The government of the archipelago is seeking proposals to build solar-powered ice-making plants on four islands. A pilot, 40 kW project powering an industrial ice machine was successfully implemented in 2016.

Via a new tender, the archipelago’s finance ministry is seeking proposals for an 11 MW floating PV system and a 10 MW ground-mounted solar plant.

The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development will support half a dozen megawatt scale projects featuring solar in the Caribbean and Africa. In addition to around 42.5 MW of new solar capacity, the fund will also back the development of energy storage, waste-to-energy and biogas facilities.

Microgrids are traditionally deployed where end users are not spoiled for choice. The remoteness and terrain of the Maldives make grid access impossible, and without any other choice, the deployment of hundreds of microgrids could be spot on. A leaf out of the island nation’s book could also support other less remote regions in preparing for the energy transition.

In the run-up to the Energy Storage Europe conference pv magazine is featuring the top ten developments in the field as our Energy Storage Highlights, selected by an independent jury of experts. Yesterday we entered our top five, with MAN’s thermoelectric energy storage.

In Mauritius, a 16 MW grid-tied solar power plant aimed at reducing coal and oil consumption was commissioned last week, while in the Maldives the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program (SREP) is supporting the archipelago’s efforts to committ to clean energies through a 5 MW solar tender.