liquefied natural gas

The International Energy Agency’s latest “Africa Energy Outlook” report says grids will need to be expanded, along with natural gas exploitation, if everyone in Africa is to have access to electricity by 2030. On the solar front, the document predicts a levelized cost of energy of $0.018/kWh to $0.049/kWh by 2030 – cheaper than wind power or gas.

The European Union’s executive branch has pledged to generate stable demand as it attempts to shift its gas supply away from Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

The tender is aimed at procuring 2 GW of capacity in response to the chronic short-term electricity supply gap that is affecting the country and its mining sector. The South African government has selected three LNG projects that may secure around 60% of the awarded capacity and several renewable energy projects including solar, wind and storage. The procurement exercise attracted a lowest bid of $ 0.0998/kWh.

Each 1.8 GW of new gas generation capacity could be replaced by 1.7 GW of solar as part of a cleaner, 6.3 GW collection of renewables and energy storage facilities–and that alternative already comes in cheaper than the business-as-usual approach, according to the Carbon Tracker thinktank.

Researchers in Israel have suggested the use of regasification of liquefied natural gas to reduce the operating temperature of PV modules in solar parks located at gas terminals. According to them, the feasibility of such a cooling solution could be strengthened by the fact that both the PV systems and the LNG regasification systems are, separately, mature, economical technologies.

Renewables may be making encouraging advances in the south Asian nation but the natural gas infrastructure deal announced today by the Saudi power company at a stroke eclipses the 375 MW of solar capacity in Bangladesh and its 609 MW development pipeline.