Over the past years a number of African countries have found their way on to the solar world map. Under South Africa’s national renewable energy programme, almost 2GW of projects are now either complete, under construction or in the pipeline. Meanwhile, countries including Ethiopia, Uganda and Ghana have signalled their intention to join the large-scale club by unveiling plans for 100MW-plus projects.
The African continent arguably has the most to gain from the deployment of PV. A combination of huge solar resources, limited grid capacity and growing demand for power driven by some of the world’s fastest growing economies provides all the right ingredients for an African solar explosion. In the same way that mobile phones have taken off in Africa, so solar, with its potential for off-grid and decentralised deployment, offer similar opportunities for propelling forward the continent’s development.
But realising Africa’s vast potential will mean the negotiation of some significant hurdles – not just technological, but political, financial and logistical too. Find attached a document by Ben Willis, Head of Content, Solar Media Ltd., who has gathered together some of the Africa features, news and product coverage from our network of websites and journals. Together they give a detailed insight the issues facing solar as it begins to gain a toehold in Africa and the possible solutions that will help that develop into something more substantial.
Find more about the organization and their regular solar sector stakeholders events under www.solarenergyevents.com.
One of the last events, Solar and Off-Grid Renewables Africa tool place in Nairobi, Kenya on 4-5 March 2014. Featuring a high-profile line up of industry and government figures, the two-day event offered expert intelligence on the business environment for solar and off-grid renewables in East Africa. Sadly from Malawi, despite the big potential for the country, only one representative of a local solar company (Powered by Nature) was present at the occasion.