UK development finance institution CDC and its Africa-focused independent power producer Globeleq are providing US$66 million in debt financing for Malindi Solar Group to build a 52MW solar PV plant in Southeast Kenya.
German firm Siemens has won a contract to supply inverter systems and other equipment to investment and construction corporation Trungnam Group’s 258MW solar farm in the southern Vietnamese province of Ninh Tuan.
The US threat of 10% tariffs on solar inverters has been met with a mixture of disdain and composure by authorities and the Chinese solar industry itself.
After successful trials, the Veolia Foundation, an arm of French waste management giant Veolia that financially backs non-profit, community-oriented projects, has decided to expand its decentralised solar electrification plans in northern Madagascar to create 1,000 nano-grids and 100 nano-entrepreneurs by the end of the year.
Developer and investor Distributed Sun (DSUN) and wind turbine firm Emergya Wind Technologies (EWT) have sold off 75MW of community solar projects they were co-developing in New York.
A number of international initiatives have helped large-scale solar gain a foothold in Africa. The question now is how the market for this segment will develop beyond these programmes and how much capacity grids will be able to support.
The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has issued a tender for two 1.5MW(AC) solar power projects with battery energy storage systems of 0.75MW / 2.5MWh each at two locations in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Tariffs in a 1GW solar auction in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have hit INR3.48-3.55/kWh (US$0.051-0.052), which is significantly higher than bids in other recent Indian auctions for a range of reasons, including a history of PPA renegotiations.
