When the democratically-elected President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, took office in May this year, the country of 170 million people had just 2.5GW of power capacity. PV Tech spoke to Professor Abubakar Sani Sambo, the chairman of the Nigerian Member Committee, World Energy Council (WEC), who will be speaking at the Solar Energy UK 2015 event in Birmingham this week, about what the outlook is for the solar industry five months into the new premiership of a country with a huge energy deficit.
John Grimes, chief executive of the Australian Solar Council, explains to PV Tech what impact the recent political compromise on the country's Renewable Energy Target will have on its solar industry.
Some of the smaller players in Latin America’s solar market appear to be taking off this year, leaving some of the bigger names in their wake, according to the latest GTM Research forecasts. PV Tech spoke to GTM's Adam James about the countries to watch in 2015.
Joint ventures involving Spain-based energy company Aljaval have received electric energy generation approval for eight solar power projects with a combined capacity of 220MW in Mexico. Javier Mas Abad, Aljaval deputy director, spoke to PV Tech about the strong future for solar in Mexico despite difficulties in gaining finance.
SolarCity has announced a partnership with Google-owned Nest to trial new customers in California using Nest’s smart thermostats in conjunction with solar power consumption. Omar Saadeh, senior grid analyst at GTM Research, spoke to PV Tech about the trend for solar companies partnering with smart home technologies and the increasing consumer appeal of energy management systems.
Author, campaigner and solar energy entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett's latest book, 'The Winning of the Carbon War', has just been published as a 10-part serial in the run up to the Paris climate summit in December. In a special interview, he speaks to Peter Bennett, editor of PV Tech's sister site, Solar Power Portal, about the global solar industry's role in the clean energy revolution he believes is inevitable as the oil, gas and coal industries become increasingly unstable.
Cenap Kuloglu, managing director at Belectric’s Turkish joint-venture Belectric Kuloglu, tells PV Tech about the company's plans and his hopes for the future of the Turkish market.
Earlier this month, the first grid-connected utility PV power plant in Rwanda and East Africa was officially opened. PV Tech spoke to Rwanda's high commissioner to the UK, Williams Nkurunziza, about what the project means for his country and for the region.
Last year saw a number of emerging solar markets begin to fulfil their potential, setting up some promising prospects for 2015. Josefin Berg, senior solar analyst at market research firm, IHS, discusses the emerging-market highlights of 2014 and what to expect in 2015.
The use of large-scale storage to contribute to grid stability at a 67.8MW solar plant in Germany is being explored by a project headed by developer BELECTRIC. Andy Colthorpe spoke to BELECTRIC’s UK managing director Duncan Bott and Tim Mueller, chief executive officer of BELECTRIC’s solar research and innovation subsidiary, Adensis.
