From China Energy News

At the beginning of April, two breakthroughs were made in the field of green energy in Africa: first, Niger announced the investment and construction of its first wind farm and began to scale up the layout of clean energy; second, South Africa realized the grid connection of “photovoltaic + energy storage” microgrid and large-scale grid for the first time, and the development of green power industry has reached a new level.

Niger will build its first wind farm

According to African Power Magazine, PARC eolien de la Tarka, the first wind farm to be built in Niger, has a design installed capacity of 250000 kW and consists of 60 wind turbines. It will be located in tahua region in southern Niger. It will be approved to start construction as soon as next year and is expected to be connected to the grid in 2025.

The Ministry of oil, energy and renewable energy of Niger said that tahua region has abundant wind energy resources and can produce highly competitive clean electricity. After the PARC eolien de la Tarka project is put into operation, it is expected to increase Niger’s power generation capacity by more than 40%, create more than 500 jobs in the construction phase, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 400000 tons per year.

 

In addition, Niger’s first wind farm can also export electricity to neighboring countries at competitive prices, further helping Niger to diversify its energy structure. It is reported that this wind farm is part of the West African power pool project (wapp), which aims to build a power network and establish a regional power market in West Africa through top-level design and necessary infrastructure construction.

According to Niger’s energy strategic plan, by 2030, 30% of the country’s electricity will come from renewable energy, and the installed capacity of local electricity will be increased by at least five times to 2million kW.

 

South Africa realizes microgrid grid connection for the first time

During the same period, the 1800kW installed solar power station and battery system in ikuruleni, the third largest city in South Africa, were connected to the grid, which is one of the largest microgrids in South Africa and the first time that the country has connected to the grid, which will greatly stabilize the local power generation capacity.

 

With the substantial reduction of renewable energy costs, the instability of the South African power grid and the continuous rise of electricity prices, large energy consumers began to prefer self generation, which greatly improved the return on investment of the “scenery + energy storage” microgrid. The owners who operate microgrid in South Africa can also sell excess power to large-scale power grids, which also drives the enthusiasm of microgrid investment and construction to a certain extent.

Benjamin attia, chief analyst of wood Mackenzie’s energy transformation practice, said that microgrid can not only reshape Africa’s energy future, but also provide a more sustainable way for the operation mode of utilities.

At present, more and more enterprises and institutions operating in Africa are seeking to establish self generating facilities to obtain more reliable electricity.