Significant increases of utility tariffs in Nigeria and Ghana are improving the business case for solar by providing money to utilities and bringing competition to the power market, according to energy developers.
Clean energy corridors of up to 2GW capacity are being planned for the West African region under plans put forward by the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE).
Midway across southern Ghana, near the historic port fishing town of Winneba, lies East and West Africa’s largest solar PV plant. Ghana suffers a severe energy deficit with only around 70% of the population having access to electricity, so it was welcome news that the project was connected to the grid at the end of last week. PV Tech visited the new project, built by China-based power firm BXC Ghana, just ahead of the Solar and Off-grid Renewables West Africa 2016 conference in Accra, Ghana.
A trial project using 1.1MWh of lithium-ion battery storage to harness power from rooftop solar systems has been installed in the Western Australia suburb of Alkimos.
RES (Renewable Energy Systems) claims the company’s experience with structuring solar, wind and transmission finance deals has made successful financing of large-scale battery projects possible.
Yesterday the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), formerly the Solar Energy Power Association, released the 2015 top 10 utility solar winners at the educational nonprofit’s annual Utility Solar Conference in Denver, Colorado.
Unsubsidised, commercial solar-plus-storage projects of the type being executed in Puerto Rico could demonstrate how to overcome many of the challenges imminent for the world’s PV markets, according to one company with experience in the field.
SolarCity announced yesterday that Jon Wellinghoff, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), is joining the company as chief policy officer.
Accra-based developer Strategic Power Solutions (SPS) has launched a new PV module manufacturing plant for US$50 million in Kpone, a commercial hub just outside the country’s capital.
