Interviews Power Plants

A nation made up of thousands of small islands should be a blessing to any off-grid renewable energy firm, but poor access to upfront financing makes Indonesia a tougher proposition than one would expect. To discuss the market, PV Tech caught up with Verania Andria, associate director, community renewable energy, Millennium Challenge Account Indonesia, which focuses on financing off-grid renewables in Indonesia with grant funding.

With the rise of solar-plus-storage applications round the world, Frank Qiao, sales director at Growatt New Energy, talks to PV Tech about some of the key inverter trends and new products.

Ecoligo is a Berlin-based crowdfunding start-up for solar projects in Africa’s commercial and industrial (C&I) market. Even though it is a company still very much in its infancy, it is already making waves by providing competitive alternatives to traditional bank loan products and connecting German private investors to tailored off-takers.

After experiencing their own problems with potential induced degradation (PID), Belgium-based Edison Energy took matters into its own hands and developed the Pidbull solution in partnership with imec. Now it sells Pidbull to anyone experiencing issues with PID. As managing director Davy Verheyden explains, it is a problem solar asset owners cannot afford to ignore.

Hoda Atia Moustafa, Africa regional officer of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the political risk insurance and credit enhancement arm of the World Bank Group, caught up with PV Tech to discuss the challenges of investing in PV in Africa.

PEG Africa is a pioneering pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar company focused on West Africa. Co-founder and CEO Hugh Whalan stopped by PV Tech to discuss why this business model is filling gaps in Africa's off-grid solar market, and how it has potential to evolve into meeting needs of consumers beyond electricity access.

Belectric has developed PV plants on every continent of the globe except Antarctica and also delivers energy storage system projects and offers a wide range of energy storage solutions including in-house battery systems, turn-key large-scale battery storage as well as scalable container solutions. Managing director of Belectric Solar and Battery, Frank Amend, spoke to Energy-Storage.News about the company's recent acquisition by RWE subsidiary innogy and where the company sees energy storage (and solar) going.

Nigeria is one of the most economically sound countries on the continent. Trailblazing in many ways including finance, infrastructure and employment, the country has up until very recently been a laggard when it comes to renewable energy. However, a newly-installed government is ensuring priorities are changing and frameworks are being put in place to exploit Nigeria’s clean energy prowess and close the gap between supply and demand. Segun Adaju, president of the Renewable Energy Association of Nigeria, discussed with PV Tech how the country is getting to grips with clean energy.

San Francisco-based SunFunder is a solar finance business with a mission to unlock capital for solar energy in emerging markets. It primarily aggregates investment capital through its beyond-the-grid and Solar Empowerment funds, thereby giving accredited investors the opportunity to invest in their on-grid and off-grid solar portfolio. Andrea Griffin, SunFunder’s vice president of global business development, stopped by PV Tech to discuss investment, currency risk and energy storage in West Africa.

All eyes are on India after the historic solar bids seen in Madhya Pradesh earlier this month, but headline prices won’t solve the more entrenched problems of the sector. PV Tech caught up with Ashish Khanna, executive director and CEO, Tata Power Solar, at the firm’s Noida offices near New Delhi to garner a rational viewpoint from one of the world's pioneering solar manufacturers and India's top solar rooftop EPC player.

Karim Megherbi, director of Origination for Africa & Central Asia at Dubai-based Access Power stopped by PV Tech to discuss why West Africa will materialise as the next hotspot for solar PV and how investors can take advantage of this.

Japan-headquartered NGK Insulators is the manufacturer of the NAS sodium sulfur battery, used in grid-scale energy storage systems around the world.

Plenty of naysayers have warned about unrealistic bidding and various delays damaging the Indian solar sector, but the head of ACME Solar, one of the largest developers India, approaching 1GW of installed capacity, has a very positive outlook on the industry's future. PV Tech caught up Manoj Kumar Upadhyay, the founder, chairman and managing director of ACME Group at the company offices in Gurgaon, New Delhi, to discuss delayed PPAs, transmission infrastructure, the approaching Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill and a unique point of view on India's Ultra Mega solar power parks.

Solar PV manufacturers have been flooding into Malaysia, but its domestic solar deployment remains relatively modest. PV Tech caught up with Catherine Ridu, chief executive officer of the Malaysia Sustainable Development Authority (SEDA), to discuss the newly-launched net metering programme and what other policies could encourage solar deployment, as well as how to leverage the manufacturing boom for domestic solar gains.

Yuang-Sheng Yu, analyst at energy Lux Research, caught up with PV Tech to discuss the potential effects of the next President on the US energy sector.