Whilst African solar is still firmly an emerging market, investors have confirmed that issues remain with development finance, insofar as it is holding back the market from truly taking off. Whilst development finance institutions (DFIs) are a crucial part of allowing the market to find its feet, the continent’s economic infrastructure needs to move beyond the realm of development finance for commercial financiers to be enticed.
India’s first grid-scale solar-plus-storage tender has been held up by the extreme drop in the country’s solar PV prices this year, according to Rahul Walawalkar, executive director of the Indian Energy Storage Alliance.
Following on from the successful year for solar that was 2016, the US market added 2,044MW of new capacity in Q1 2017 alone. As installations grow, prices continue to fall to new lows and utility-scale system prices dropped below US$1/Watt for the first time according to GTM Research.
Breaking up Eskom’s monopoly in South Africa’s power market is not the answer to signing the outstanding PPAs under the country’s renewable energy procurement programme, a representative from the Department of Energy (DOE) has said.
SunEQ signs PPA for 5MW Namibia project, India's Pune Metro plans 17MW solar, Adani Green Energy no longer Adani subsidiary, Cuba to get 4.4MW PV project
Ho Chi Minh City-based conglomerate TTC Group plans to spend up to US$1 billion on 10 to 20 solar parks with a combined capacity of around 1GW, according to Bloomberg.
Spain’s National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) announced this week that it has officially approved PV company juwi to develop a 450MW PV project within the country.
Manila-based bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is partnering with governments, communities and the private sector to support clean energy projects in the Pacific region.