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.
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.
A veteran of Kenya’s renewable energy industry has argued strongly in favour of lead acid batteries over lithium-ion, in response to a recent Energy-Storage.news article on off-grid solar PV in Africa.
Increasingly, solar energy and behind-the-meter battery storage assets are being deployed on an ‘as-a-service’ basis and system integrator Younicos has decided to replicate the strategy for microgrids.
UK-based off-grid renewables specialist BBOXX has signed a deal with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to bring clean power to 2.5 million citizens across the African country by 2020, via off-grid solar kits and mini-grids.
Private Kenyan power firm Kenergy Renewables has signed off on a 20-year deal to sell 40MW of PV power to the country’s state-run utility, Reuters reports.
Close on heels of its recent announcement on forming a new global unit focused on the hybrid and energy storage market, Indian EPC Sterling and Wilson has won a captive solar-diesel-storage microgrid project in Africa. PV Tech caught up with Vish Iyer, global head of business development, strategy and marketing for the Hybrid and Energy Storage division at Sterling and Wilson, to find out more.
Indian EPC firm Sterling and Wilson has won its first large-scale hybrid and energy storage turnkey EPC contract order in Western Africa, including what it believes to be both the largest battery storage project and single battery installation in the whole continent.
Providers of solar-plus-storage into the continent of Africa have said that it is a misconception that lead acid batteries used in off-grid systems are recycled efficiently back into the supply chain.
