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Lu Lixuan and his team have reaped fruitful rewards from their recent Nigeria trip. Lu’s company, Zhejiang Jinxi Solar Energy Facilities Co. Ltd., won contracts from the Nigerian energy sector totaling about 40 million yuan($6.3 million) to supply solar generation systems.
“We are expected to provide 720 solar power systems and 9,000 PV modules [for Nigeria],” said Lu.
Before the Nigeria trip, the Yiwu-based solar module maker already signed deals totaling 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) for solar projects in more than 10 African countries including Ghana, Egypt and Liberia. All signs indicate that the momentum of China-Africa bilateral cooperation on solar technology is high and growing, despite the slump in the global solar industry since 2010.
Big, bright market
Nigeria has experienced a shortage of power supplies for many years and on an average its residents get only about 10 hours of electricity a day, according to Lu. However, the country has excellent potential for the development of solar energy with daily total sunshine of nine hours.
The Nigerian energy sector said it will take full advantage of its abundant solar resources while formulating the Development Plan for Renewable Energy in Nigeria.
“After week-long live demonstration of our electric power generation equipment [in Nigeria], more than 10 governmental departments and over 20 local governments expressed their high interest in buying our products, and soon signed agreements [with us] for supply of solar generation systems and PV panels,” said Lu.
In fact, Nigeria’s solar power is the epitome of renewable energy utilization in Africa.
According to a report from Lighting Africa in 2011, a joint World Bank and the International Finance Corp. program, in many of Africa’s towns and villages, smoky kerosene lamps are used to meet lighting needs. And the African continent is mainly dependent on both wood and charcoal for cooking and heating homes, which contributes to indoor air pollution.
While Africa is magnificently endowed with the resources for clean power - abundant sunshine, wind and water - little is exploited, according to World Energy Council Vice President for Africa Abubakar Sambo.
This is something Jiang Zhongjin, an expert on Africa from Nanjing university, agrees with.
“Africa should look at ways to reduce use of firewood, crop straw, and manure by turning to alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind, and micro-hydro,” Jiang told ChinAfrica.
“We were delighted to find some fishermen using our solar lanterns to fish at night [while on a visit to Africa],” said Huang Zixiang, Public Relations Director with Trony Solar, one of China’s biggest manufacturers of thin-film solar energy equipment. “It shows that the demand for our solar products is huge.”
Trony Solar began entering the African market in 2009, and now nearly half of its annual turnover is from the continent. The company opened a representative office in Kenya at the end of February 2012, and the number of employees has increased to 15. It has since been expanding its operational presence in other African countries, including Ethiopia, South Sudan, Ghana and Nigeria.
In addition, developing renewable energy is one of the eight measures that China’s Premier Wen Jiabao proposed in 2009 to aid Africa at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Egypt. China has decided to build 100 clean energy projects for Africa covering solar power, biogas and small hydro-power. The first batch of projects centering on utilization of solar energy were launched in Africa in June 2011.
Challenge ahead
There is huge demand for clean energy in Africa, but strong demand does not necessarily mean strong consumption.?
Analysts said many Africans were not able to afford solar power as the per-capita income level of the African countries is generally not high.
“The small [solar] panel I am selling costs about $215, more than the monthly wage of an average South African farm laborer,” said an exhibitor who gave his surname as Wu, at the African Energy Indaba held in South Africa last year.
CEO of Trony Solar Li Yi believed that the price of the Chinese PV products was still highly competitive, although they are not characterized by the world’s highest efficiency of photoelectric conversion.
Solar panel prices have fallen nearly 40 percent since the middle of last year. Chinese photovoltaic products are under pressure from price cutting and irrational competition from the solar industry.
From another perspective, however, industrial insiders believed that those sharp price drops are a good thing, forcing Chinese solar makers to rethink product plans for sustainable growth and helping to accelerate solar energy development and application in Africa.
Africa has ideal conditions for solar energy, said Wang Wenming, President of the Africainvest.net, after visiting Africa many times. He added that feedback has been overwhelmingly positive as many African officials expressed their willingness to strengthen cooperation with China in the development of new energy.
It’s proven through Sino-African bilateral cooperation in science and technology recent years. Since June 2009, China and Kenya has worked together to develop solar power projects that will be suitable to Kenya’s geographic conditions. In that December, China Exhibition on Innovative Technologies and Products, a platform and mechanism to strengthen ChinaAfrica relationship and help African countries raise the technological capability, was held in Egypt. A China-Africa Science & Technology Cooperation Forum was held in December last year in Beijing. Obviously, those in the eyes of Chinese solar manufacturers as well as African counterparts indicate hope for Sino-African solar energy development.
“We are expected to provide 720 solar power systems and 9,000 PV modules [for Nigeria],” said Lu.
Before the Nigeria trip, the Yiwu-based solar module maker already signed deals totaling 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) for solar projects in more than 10 African countries including Ghana, Egypt and Liberia. All signs indicate that the momentum of China-Africa bilateral cooperation on solar technology is high and growing, despite the slump in the global solar industry since 2010.
Big, bright market
Nigeria has experienced a shortage of power supplies for many years and on an average its residents get only about 10 hours of electricity a day, according to Lu. However, the country has excellent potential for the development of solar energy with daily total sunshine of nine hours.
The Nigerian energy sector said it will take full advantage of its abundant solar resources while formulating the Development Plan for Renewable Energy in Nigeria.
“After week-long live demonstration of our electric power generation equipment [in Nigeria], more than 10 governmental departments and over 20 local governments expressed their high interest in buying our products, and soon signed agreements [with us] for supply of solar generation systems and PV panels,” said Lu.
In fact, Nigeria’s solar power is the epitome of renewable energy utilization in Africa.
According to a report from Lighting Africa in 2011, a joint World Bank and the International Finance Corp. program, in many of Africa’s towns and villages, smoky kerosene lamps are used to meet lighting needs. And the African continent is mainly dependent on both wood and charcoal for cooking and heating homes, which contributes to indoor air pollution.
While Africa is magnificently endowed with the resources for clean power - abundant sunshine, wind and water - little is exploited, according to World Energy Council Vice President for Africa Abubakar Sambo.
This is something Jiang Zhongjin, an expert on Africa from Nanjing university, agrees with.
“Africa should look at ways to reduce use of firewood, crop straw, and manure by turning to alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind, and micro-hydro,” Jiang told ChinAfrica.
“We were delighted to find some fishermen using our solar lanterns to fish at night [while on a visit to Africa],” said Huang Zixiang, Public Relations Director with Trony Solar, one of China’s biggest manufacturers of thin-film solar energy equipment. “It shows that the demand for our solar products is huge.”
Trony Solar began entering the African market in 2009, and now nearly half of its annual turnover is from the continent. The company opened a representative office in Kenya at the end of February 2012, and the number of employees has increased to 15. It has since been expanding its operational presence in other African countries, including Ethiopia, South Sudan, Ghana and Nigeria.
In addition, developing renewable energy is one of the eight measures that China’s Premier Wen Jiabao proposed in 2009 to aid Africa at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Egypt. China has decided to build 100 clean energy projects for Africa covering solar power, biogas and small hydro-power. The first batch of projects centering on utilization of solar energy were launched in Africa in June 2011.
Challenge ahead
There is huge demand for clean energy in Africa, but strong demand does not necessarily mean strong consumption.?
Analysts said many Africans were not able to afford solar power as the per-capita income level of the African countries is generally not high.
“The small [solar] panel I am selling costs about $215, more than the monthly wage of an average South African farm laborer,” said an exhibitor who gave his surname as Wu, at the African Energy Indaba held in South Africa last year.
CEO of Trony Solar Li Yi believed that the price of the Chinese PV products was still highly competitive, although they are not characterized by the world’s highest efficiency of photoelectric conversion.
Solar panel prices have fallen nearly 40 percent since the middle of last year. Chinese photovoltaic products are under pressure from price cutting and irrational competition from the solar industry.
From another perspective, however, industrial insiders believed that those sharp price drops are a good thing, forcing Chinese solar makers to rethink product plans for sustainable growth and helping to accelerate solar energy development and application in Africa.
Africa has ideal conditions for solar energy, said Wang Wenming, President of the Africainvest.net, after visiting Africa many times. He added that feedback has been overwhelmingly positive as many African officials expressed their willingness to strengthen cooperation with China in the development of new energy.
It’s proven through Sino-African bilateral cooperation in science and technology recent years. Since June 2009, China and Kenya has worked together to develop solar power projects that will be suitable to Kenya’s geographic conditions. In that December, China Exhibition on Innovative Technologies and Products, a platform and mechanism to strengthen ChinaAfrica relationship and help African countries raise the technological capability, was held in Egypt. A China-Africa Science & Technology Cooperation Forum was held in December last year in Beijing. Obviously, those in the eyes of Chinese solar manufacturers as well as African counterparts indicate hope for Sino-African solar energy development.