Africa & Middle East

An ageing 545MW wind farm in Egypt is to be reborn as a 3GW PV and wind hybrid facility under a provisional repowering plan agreed last week.

The EAAIF, FMO and DEG have invested €84 million (US$89.2 million) into AXIAN Energy’s Kolda solar-plus-storage portfolio in Senegal.

Located in the Free State province, the project will be owned by Teraco and is expected to be operational in 2026.

News round-up of recent tenders globally; Nepal awarded 1GW of solar, Italy 320MW and Bahrain seeks 44MW of PV capacity.

Degradation issues identified in new cell technologies such as TOPCon and HJT underscore the importance of module stability as well as efficiency. Tom Kenning reports on the testing of next-generation modules and efforts to ensure their longevity in the field.

Despite record renewables installations in 2023, notably PV, the global energy transition remains “off track” and geographically imbalanced.

The Global Solar Council announced that it will launch the International Solar Finance Group at the COP29 conference in Baku, Azerbaijan

The China Energy International Engineering Co. (Energy China) is about to embark on a milestone 1GW solar project in Iraq.

Solar PV infrastructure company Desert Technologies intends to build a solar cell and module assembly plant in Saudi Arabia.

A surge in rooftop solar has helped resolve load shedding in South Africa, but this has led to a decline in the demand for residential PV.