Zambia

German PV developer BayWa r.e. has completed an 86 kW PV + storage project, which will power irrigation equipment for farmers in Zambia. The project marks Baywa r.e.’s first entrance on to the African continent, where the company says it has significant plans for expansion.

The funding is to be used to implement a Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff (REFiT)-Strategy. Zambia aims to attract investors to overcome the energy crisis and to generate power sustainably.

Several sessions during last week’s Africa Energy Forum (AEF) depicted the dynamics of solar energy development in Zambia that is currently taking the form of mini grids as well as larger projects via the scaling solar program.

Zambia’s Industrial Development Corporation Limited (IDC) has issued a Request for Prequalification for the construction of several large-scale solar plants across the country. Selected projects will be developed under the ‘Scaling Solar’ initiative.

The Italian utility is laying the foundations for solar cell production at its PV panel manufacturing facility. The final goal of the project is 1 GW commercial cell production. Meanwhile, Enel Green Power has secured the PPA for a 34 MW PV facility in Zambia, and has broken ground on a 238 MW solar park in Mexico.

Solar-powered minigrids could account for a greater slice of sub-Saharan Africa’s $740 million off-grid market, but progress is still needed throughout the region in terms of policy, financing and commercial services, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) says in a new report.

The French developer has secured a 25-year PPA for Zambia’s largest PV plant. The project, which was selected in an auction held by the World Bank in 2014, will sell power to local utility ZESCO at US$0.0602 per KWh.

Zambian government signs agreement for the second tranche of the World Bank’s Scaling Solar program, which will support the construction of up to four solar PV plants in the country.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) updated the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) last week about solar PV developments in Africa through the IFC’s Scaling Solar program.