Zimbabwe

As the global North ponders e-mobility dilemmas such as how to source sufficient materials to meet electric car demand, fresh evidence has emerged of how solar can decarbonize transport and farming in Africa.

HDF and ZETDC have signed Zimbabwe’s first utility-scale green hydrogen power plant, with 178 GWh of expected annual electricity production. Rystad Energy, meanwhile, says Africa’s total electrolyzer pipeline has hit 114 GW.

The Zimbabwean government has agreed to guarantee viable power tariffs to 27 solar projects by independent power producers (IPPs). Developers are set to build 997.9 MW of capacity, with a total investment of around $1 billion.

Cape Town-based solar crowdfunding platform The Sun Exchange in April announced completion of its largest funding call, for US$1.4 million to finance what it described as a 510kW solar-plus-storage facility for Zimbawean food company Nhimbe Fresh. With the first part of a planned three-phase “going solar” transformation of the business complete, pv magazine spoke to The Sun Exchange founder and CEO Abraham Cambridge, and to Nhimbe Fresh chairman Edwin Masimba Moyo.

Platinum miner Zimplats will spend $200 million on 185 MW of solar plants to power operations to help seal approval for its capital spending plans by the Zimbabwean government and to make up for deficiencies in local electricity supply.

Sun Exchange is seeking to deploy 1 GW of solar power projects in Africa the next five years as it further expands its user base. Sun Exchange CEO Abraham Cambridge spoke to pv magazine about how the company will use its newly acquired funds.

With pressure mounting on the world’s governments to turn their back on the fossil fuel, China and peers in South East Asia, Europe and South Asia could help deliver a coal-free future at the COP26 climate summit planned in Glasgow in November.

Johannesburg-based clean power business Blockpower is working on installing a back-up power supply across three agricultural estates in Zimbabwe.

A report commissioned by EU lender the EIB has dismissed the role solar mini-grids can play in achieving universal electrification by 2030 and signaled distribution to individual households should be the way forward, including sales to the residents of UN refugee camps in East Africa.

The Africa Solar Industry Association has recorded almost 2 GW of large scale project announcements since the start of last month with 18 countries planning new clean power infrastructure and including energy storage in the plants.