Sub-Saharan Africa

Energy of Cameroon wants to build two solar parks to improve power supply in the country’s northern regions. The projects will be developed by a consortium led by Norwegian solar company Scatec.

Botswana Power Corp is seeking independent power producers to build two 50 MW solar parks. The projects are intended to reduce the nation’s dependence on power imports from troubled South African utility Eskom.

The Lone Star State accounted for almost half of the activity witnessed in the world’s biggest corporate clean energy marketplace but analysts are excited about the prospect of Beijing mandating companies to purchase minimum levels of green electricity.

Ethiopia is currently trying to set up a methodology for the calculation of electricity tariffs for mini-grid systems. Should the government’s work come to fruition, it can provide much-needed certainty to mini-grid investors.

A U.S. research team has found the most efficient locations for agrivoltaics include western America, southern Africa and the Middle East. The researchers found crop land, grasslands and wetlands were the best environments for PV projects linked to agriculture. Conditions suitable for crops are ideal for improving solar module efficiency.

After joining the Scaling Solar initiative in mid-July, the sub-Saharan country has revealed where its first 30 MW PV plant will be built.

NamPower has announced two 20 MW solar projects as part of a 220 MW renewable energy strategy. One will be owned and operated by the utility and the second will be tendered in the near future.

A report by Greenpeace has found in the five years since China announced the continent spanning ‘One Belt, One Road’ infrastructure plan, investment in Belt & Road countries has supported 12.6 GW of wind and solar power generation capacity. That compares with just 450 MW which came online in the territories before 2014. The initiative has also supported 68 GW of new coal capacity.

In July 2016 Nigeria signed power purchase agreements with 14 utility scale PV projects with a total generation capacity of 1,075 MW. None of the projects has reached financial close and pv magazine has learned the government wants to reduce the agreed tariffs.

The London-based developer revealed blockbusting annual figures which show it is debt free, has almost £20 million in the bank, raked in more than half that figure in net profits in 2018-19 and expects twice as much in a year’s time.