A consortium of Saudi-based developer ACWA Power and contractor AlGihaz have closed financing of the SAR1.2 billion (US$319 million) Sakaka solar project standing at 300MW in Al Jouf, Saudi Arabia, a project that attracted headlines across the world last year after the government chose ACWA Power despite Masdar putting in the lowest ever solar bid.
Jordan's energy minister Hala Zawati has laid the foundation stone for a 52MW solar project being developed by a consortium between US-based firm AES Corporation, Japan's Mitsui and Qatar's Nebras Power, in Al-Madounah, East Amman.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has added 250MW of solar PV to its agreement with a consortium led by Saudi-based developer ACWA Power for capacity in the fourth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which is already one of the world’s largest Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) developments.
Singapore's EDB consults on 100MW floating solar, ADB funds Mongolia 41MW distributed solar-wind-storage project, Solarcentury to install solar panels at Moi International Airport in Kenya.
Global floating solar installations had reached 1.1GW as of September this year, a huge rise from just 10MW at the end of 2014, according to the first report on floating PV from the World Bank and Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS).
The distributed renewable energy (DRE) sector, necessary in a world with millions of people without power, is being held back by a chronic shortage of skilled workers. Indeed, Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) has just 16,000 people working in renewable energy in a region with 600 million un-electrified people, according to the founders of a new campaign aiming to fill this skills gap.
With Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) as its sole offtaker, the 100MW project in Amin, Oman, is said to be the world's first utility-scale PV project to have an oil and gas company as the sole wholesale buyer of power.
