Northern Africa

The Chinese state-owned infrastructure investment fund, which already has strong ties to the Saudi power company, will be a major shareholder in a Middle East and African clean energy portfolio that adds up to 1668 MW of generation capacity.

At the 21st AEF, held last week in Lisbon. pv magazine had two journalists on the ground and here reports on five key findings.

The German PV company had reached commercial operation of the first batch of its project at the huge Egyptian solar park in February 2018. Participants in the 1.8 GW solar park receive tariffs set in the nation’s second FIT tender round.

Only eight of the 93 companies which acquired the technical specifications for the tender have decided to participate in the procurement exercise. Collectively, the submitted project proposals had a combined capacity of 90 MW. Domestic content rules required the use of solar modules assembled in Algeria, as well as locally manufactured mounting structures and cables.

The nation’s renewable energy legislation will be updated to expand net metering for projects connected to the medium voltage grid, paving the way for a wave of decentralized installations.

The 21st Africa Energy Forum, this year in Lisbon, kicked off yesterday and will run until Friday. The meeting offers an insight into the continent’s energy markets.

Boasting 195 MW of bifacial-and-tracking capacity, Scatec Solar is halfway to its planned 400 MW target for the technology combination at the 1.8 GW Benban park. The remainder is likely to come online this year.

There was plenty of innovation on display at this year’s SNEC, which closed yesterday afternoon at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. The three-day exhibition ran from Tuesday to Thursday, was well attended and still ranks as the world’s largest solar energy trade show.

Scatec Solar has connected the next part of its 400 MW tracking and bifacial PV plant to the grid in Egypt’s Benban complex. The entire project is set to fully come online throughout the second half of the year. Meanwhile, the company has also secured additional funding for a 33 MW solar project in Mali.

The grouping, which includes UAE-based Masdar and Moroccan independent power producer Green of Africa, is planning to begin construction this year. The project is among those realized by the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy, as part of the Noor Solar Plan to develop a minimum 2 GW of capacity by next year.