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RE:The solar energy industry is accelerating
"jintengflag published on 2021-08-14 10:26:07
Recent data released by the Solar Industry Association of Africa shows that the solar industry in Africa is entering a period of accelerated growth. In the last two months alone, a total of nearly 2 GIGawatts of large and medium-sized solar power projects have been announced in many African countries, and 18 of them are planning to build solar energy related industrial infrastructure, including power station energy storage, in the same period. Notably, some African countries have begun experimenting with more advanced solar technologies to keep up with the global clean-energy boom.South Africa, the first country on the continent to generate more than a gigawatt of solar power, signed another big deal last month. A Norwegian renewable energy developer has won the South African Department of Energy's bid for two projects -- a solar power project with a capacity of 540 megawatts and a battery storage project with a capacity of 1.14 gigawatts. The two projects will provide deployable power to the South African Grid between 5am and 9.30pm daily during the 20-year contract period. The deal is being watched closely by the South African government as it seeks to solve the country's chronic power shortages by bidding for a large carbon-free industry.Among African countries where the solar industry has accelerated in recent years, Zambia has joined the ranks of leaders in multiple types of photovoltaic power generation. At the end of July, Sinohydro won the bid for the civil engineering part of the Concentrated solar power generation project in Zambia. The plant will use a large number of mirrors to concentrate the energy of sunlight into a heat transfer medium, which will then transfer the heat to the inlet steam of the turbine, eventually generating 200 megawatts of electricity. In 2019, solar power prices in Zambia fell to the lowest level ever recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, at less than $40 per megawatt hour, which helped further expand the industry. Zambia currently has nearly 500 megawatts of solar photovoltaic projects under construction.Other recent solar projects that AEIBA focuses on include projects in Togo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Namibia. Even SAO Tome and Principe, a small west African island state, is building a small 550kW solar power plant.According to a report on the African solar market released at last year's International Solar Energy Fair in Munich, Germany, the potential of the African solar industry is huge. Although Africa currently accounts for only 1% of global solar power production, if the industry grows at the same pace as the rest of the world, the continent could have 170 gigawatts of installed pv capacity by 2030. Over the last three years, the fastest growing regions in the world for pv are Europe, the Middle East and Africa, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where global financial investment in PV has boosted the development of related industries. According to the European Solar Industry Association, the solar market in sub-Saharan Africa will see a significant increase in installed capacity between 2020 and 2024, with a conservative estimate of 21 gigawatts added.Africa director carbon exchange Wesley Douglas said in an interview with the media, most African countries are in a critical period of energy transformation, industrial electricity gap is huge, and about half of the African population have no access to electricity, and the cost is relatively low and has scalability solar is an important solution to speed up the process. Douglas stressed that Africa is a vast region with uneven regional development, but relatively consistent in its abundant sunlight resources, which can attract investment in solar industries of various types, sizes and technological characteristics. Africa is expected to be the focus of rapid growth in the global solar industry."