Off-Grid

Africa cannot wait for the development of electricity infrastructure and should exploit more quickly deployable solutions such as solar PV, according to a report by Kofi Annan’s Africa Progress Panel.

Elon Musk touts Tesla's ability to solve South Australia's power crisis in 100 days, Apple's manufacturer in Japan Ibiden to go 100% renewable, USTDA grant for feasibility study into 34MW of solar in Burkino Faso grant, India PV canal capacity reaches 24MW.

France has awarded contracts to 79 projects in the first 500MW tender of its 3GW large-scale programme, as well as announcing tender programmes for 450MW of self-consumption renewable energy systems and 210MW of 'solar innovations' including solar roads.

China-based renewables firm Unisun Energy Group and consumer goods provider Unilever North Asia are partnering on a 13.4MW distributed generation solar PV project in China’s Anhui Province.

From PV-Tech’s publisher comes The Global Energy Storage Opportunity, a special online-only supplement magazine that looks at some of the exciting recent developments in all segments from microgrids and residential to grid-scale and commercial.

The complexities of combining batteries and solar microgrids are explained by Sam Duby, co-founder and director of research and development at mini-grid technologies company SteamaCo Ltd and project leader at TFE Consulting. TFE Consulting is a strategy consulting firm focusing on accelerating the energy transition in emerging markets and is active in Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Power Africa, the USAID-funded energy initiative created under the Obama administration, has announced plans to invest US$1 billion in Nigeria’s energy sector, according to programme co-ordinator Andrew Herscowitz.

In partnership with Ghana’s Climate Innovation Centre, Solar Media’s Clean Energy West Africa will host the first incubator workshop in April for start-ups.

News in Brief: NRG commissions a 3.15MW Florida solar plant with Lakeland Electric, Power Africa reaches 30,000 new solar connections in Nigeria, PayGo solar company Azuri nets US$5 million for off-grid expansion in Africa, UPS will expand its solar capacity five-fold and India's BHEL bags its biggest single rooftop PV order.

Investors from Solarcentury and Actis imparted wisdom on how to manage the risks and reap the benefits of African PV at Solar Media’s Solar Finance & Investment Europe event.