Solar Compass最新文献

The mini-grid market in Africa is steadily growing and solar PV, wind, hydro or biomass-powered mini-grids are expected to be a major factor in the electrification of rural areas. However, mini-grid markets cannot realize their full potential as most energy regulators do not provide an appropriate answer to the simple question “What happens when the main grid arrives?”. The lack of regulatory security of tenure and potentially subsidized tariffs for main grid-sourced electricity risk stranded investments when the main grid arrives and thus threaten private sector participation and investment.

Effective grid encroachment regulations should provide adequate (i) technical requirements, (ii) legal protection, (iii) variety of business models for the post encroachment period, (iv) financial compensation mechanisms for mini-grids, and (v) protection of customer interests upon changes of supplier, should this result from grid encroachment. The research developed a set of objective benchmarks for the above five categories and tests the effectiveness of mini-grid encroachment regulations of 24 African nations against these benchmarks.

The inter-comparison study amongst grid encroachment regulations highlights the gaps in existing regulations of the African countries. It demonstrates that Zambia meets 80% of the developed benchmarks while most other nations lag significantly in offering fair treatment to mini-grid investors in case of grid encroachment. The findings also demonstrate that Zambian regulations have potential usefulness for other countries in and outside Africa to further develop or streamline mini-grid encroachment approaches and regulations towards workable regulatory frameworks that could contribute towards achieving a world-wide goal of 100% renewables.

This paper reviews the status and prospects of global renewable energy deployments and their contribution to the total energy supply. Substantial renewable energy capacity expansion has occurred over the past decade due to decreasing costs and favorable policies. Globally, the power sector saw 256 GW of renewable power capacity added in 2020. The contribution of renewable energy to the other major end use sectors - transport and heating - is more modest. Major policy drivers for renewable energy deployments are coming from climate mitigation initiatives, including the 2015 Paris Climate agreement to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C. To achieve this goal, GHG emissions need to be cut in half within the next decade, and to reach “net-zero”, by 2050. However, recent analyses show that current pledges by national governments are far less ambitious than need to be taken to remain within the 1.5°C limit. Several studies demonstrate how the 1.5°C limit can be achieved through large scale, and perhaps even 100%, renewable energy deployments. These studies conclude that a transformation to a fully decarbonized energy system, making extensive use of renewable technologies, is not only technically feasible based on current and emerging technologies but also results in a lower-cost energy system overall, creating significant market opportunities for renewables. For example, the solar PV market growth under these scenarios would be 10–15% annually over the next three decades–well within the growth levels the industry has experienced thus far.

India has been one of the major deployers of solar PV during the last decade, having installed about 50 GW during this period. Since 2021, there has, in addition, been a great deal of interest to set up the solar manufacturing chain in the country, from polysilicon and wafers to cells and modules. Driven by a slew of policies and incentives announced by the government, several companies have announced and embarked on solar manufacturing. It is being estimated that by 2025, there will be about 40 GW of module production in India, some of it with full or partial upstream integration. This would make India one of the two or three leading solar manufacturers in the world. This paper describes the incentives provided and the companies’ responses to these incentives. It also describes and recommends technology options available for manufacturing in India, and estimates India's cost competitiveness of manufacturing, comparing countries as well as technologies. The paper further outlines the requirements for ancillary manufacturing units and for concerted R&D and training to support and enable a fully integrated modern solar manufacturing ecosystem in India. Although the focus of this paper is on India, the challenges and opportunities would also be relevant to other countries of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).