Sub-Saharan Africa

Although the energy price recovered this week, ultra low levels driven by bumper solar power generation on a sunny weekend in Germany reportedly put further pressure on the business case for conventional energy.

Solar support is on the way for businesses and communities struggling to cope as the coronavirus outbreak ripples across the continent.

The move represents a step forward in the implementation of the National Action Plan for Renewable Energy (Paner), through which the West African nation aims to install 1.42 GW of renewable energy by 2030.

French developer Qair will start building a 5.8 MW floating solar array later this year on a lagoon on the East African nation’s main island. It claims the installation will be the world’s largest floating PV project to be built on saltwater upon completion.

The Economic Community of West African States should prioritize the development of solar PV to meet surging energy demand over the next 30 years, according to a newly published study.

The country’s power utility has completed the pre-selection process to seek developers for a 20 MW solar project in the Banjul region. The project will feature up to four PV plants and will be developed under the national Electricity Restoration and Modernization Project.

An international research team has defined the operational parameters needed to design and manufacture crystalline silicon PV modules for tropical climates. The group proposed a back-junction, back-contact cell tech with a selective laser soldering technique it claims offers the best potential to yield such robust panels.

While it has seen little fallout for its operating PV assets, the Norwegian solar developer says the coronavirus pandemic has started to affect construction, commissioning and testing of some of its new solar plants.

Chinese business Sinohydro has secured the contract for a 20 MW solar plant in Gardete, near the city of Bissau. The tender for the project was launched a year ago.

The country’s energy regulator published two papers this week to solicit public feedback on plans that Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe recently submitted for review. The first document relates to the tech-neutral procurement of 2 GW of short-term risk-mitigation capacity, which could see solar emerge as a winner due to its quick deployment times. The second paper is linked to the nation’s Integrated Resource Plan 2019, which aims for up to 6 GW of new large-scale solar by 2030, as well as an additional 6 GW of distributed-generation capacity.