Solar power is warming Africa – thanks in part to the chilli
They’re the chili peppers in spicy chicken at a restaurant chain you may know. And they were the components used by a Canadian company to build the first solar power plant in Malawi.
About a tenth of Malawi’s grid electricity now comes from two new solar plants built by Toronto-based JCM Power. 60 MW Salima Solar PlantCo-owned with Infraco Africa Limited, The country’s first solar plant will be built in 2021. Golomoti arrived a year later, and its five-megawatt battery is the first such storage system for a utility-scale project in sub-Saharan Africa.
They are desperately needed – at the latest by 2023, Less than 16 percent of people in Malawi had access to electricity.
But despite the obvious need and the country’s sunny climate, there were a few reasons why solar power took so long to arrive.
Loris Andries, JCM’s Cape Town-based senior business developer for Africa, said that before those projects, Malawi was a “marginal market”, where regulations for solar energy projects did not exist. Developing them became part of the process of building Sliema and Golomoti.
Another challenge was that the Malawi government pays JCM in Malawi Kwacha, which is volatile compared to other currencies and can devalue quickly.
JCM Power’s solution was to invest the kwacha in solar panels and community farming of African Bird’s Eye peppers in and around the area. These, in turn, are sold in US dollars, largely to Nando’s Peri-Peri, a chain of chicken restaurants with a distinctive hot sauce (there are some locations in Canada).
“This is a very fundamental, innovative way of how we can adapt,” Andries said.
Africa’s solar opportunity
According to the International Energy Agency, Africa has 60 percent of the world’s best solar resourcesSince most of it is near the equator some dust and cloud cover.
Meanwhile, there is an emphasis on connecting 600 million Africans with no access to electricity To align with by 2030 goal of united nations Of universal access. African electricity demand expected to increase eight times by 2050Report of the Global Africa Business Initiative organized by several UN agencies.
Amos Wemanya, senior climate adviser at Power Shift Africa, an African think-tank that promotes renewable energy, said many African countries have traditionally relied on imported fossil fuels with volatile prices. Solar, he said, “offers an opportunity for energy sovereignty.”
Solar achieves record growth in Africa by 2025 54 percent increase in solar energy installationsGlobal Solar Council Report. This is happening on two tracks: Roofing systems financed by individual homeowners and utility-scale plants that connect to the national grid, which are is considered the cheapest option Providing electricity to almost half of the African population who needs it.
Large-scale plants are often financed with the help of foreign countries.
Whereas China And some european countries There are large investors in clean energy in Africa, with some Canadian companies also having projects on the continent.
While private funding accounts for about two-thirds of investment in 2024, the IEA says public and development finance is important in new markets or “commercially unviable sectors”.
JCM Power is owned by five development banks, including FinDev Canada, a federal Crown corporation with a mandate to support businesses and promote sustainable development in developing markets.
Apart from Malawi, JCM is developing new opportunities in Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Congo and Tanzania.
Andries said that compared to the company’s projects in other regions such as South Asia, projects in Africa are smaller and “much more challenging”.
But he added, “We’re going to stay in Africa because that’s where we can impact the most people.”
They can go beyond providing impact power. For example, FinDev Canada needed JCM to ensure that women had leadership opportunities in places like Malawi. Which still faces challenges of gender equality.
Grace Kalowa, who was first appointed as a local gender inclusion specialist, is now Malawi country manager for JCM Power, and a quarter of the 63 employees at Malawi plants are women.
While JCM takes advantage of development funding, private investment is playing an increasing role in African solar projects, as public and development finance for energy projects in Africa has declined by one third over the past decade, largely due to cutbacks in spending by Chinese development banks. IEA report.
Solar panels are popping up in the salt plains of western India, and farmers tell CBC South Asia correspondent Salima Shivji that the technology has completely changed their lives.
Vancouver’s Stardust Solar launches first franchise in Zambia
Stardust Solar Energy is a public, Vancouver-based company that is part of the growing private investment in solar energy in Africa, generally in more established markets.
zambia added Last year 139 MW solar energy. This year, Stardust is launching a 35-hectare, 30 MW solar project there through its new local franchise, Megatricity Energy.
Stardust already has more than 100 franchises in Canada, the US and the Caribbean, but this is the first in Africa.
Company director and chief operating officer Eamon McHugh said it is important for Africa to deploy more electricity, “and solar is one of the fastest sources of energy to be deployed.”
Franchisees Ochas Kashinje Pupwe and Lee Lewanika Simbe launched a franchise with Stardust in Biloxi, Miss., last year and almost immediately talked about expanding to Zambia, where they grew up. The team entered into a power purchase agreement with the national utility, purchased land in Zambia’s Copper Belt region, and the franchise officially launched in September.
McHugh said they are currently conducting geological tests – “first to make sure there is no emerald and copper on the ground.”
They expect the plant to begin producing power this summer and reach its full 30 megawatt capacity in 2027.
Stardust is providing services such as engineering, financing and training, while franchisees are responsible for managing local manufacturing.
McHugh said they are also looking at other opportunities, such as being able to provide training through schools and installing solar power on homes, clinics and schools in the area through the local “Green Cities” fund.
He said while foreign financing is often important for solar projects in Africa, the franchise model benefits communities. “We are not just a big company building solar plants. We enable local businesses to grow and become a professional solar business.”
But he also thinks it could be good for Stardust: “There’s an incredible opportunity there.”
Caution is necessary for sustainable solar energy
Carole Brunet is an associate professor at INRS (Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique) in Montreal and lecturer at Polytechnique Montréal. Researches the social and environmental impacts of the global energy transition. He has studied utility-scale solar projects in Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Madagascar and South Africa.
He said development banks have a number of guidelines to promote responsible, sustainable development and maximize the benefits of such projects. These could include enhancing local agriculture, ensuring local training and employment opportunities, or promoting gender equality.
“Unfortunately… I have not seen any (solar) power plant where sustainable development objectives are respected to the extent that they should be,” he told CBC News in French.
He said some solar development is happening so fast that impacts cannot be properly managed.
Some projects take up large tracts of land that communities cannot access, cut down trees that provide shade and cooling, or use scarce resources like water for things like cleaning panels, while providing fewer jobs than expected, causing tension with local communities.
Wemanya at Power Shift Africa agreed that this could happen, especially as solar power is increasingly deployed in utility-scale projects.
He believes this can be mitigated, however, if local communities organize and advocate for their needs, and if solar deployment is linked to the development of local industries such as mining or irrigation of local crops.
He believes it could also encourage more private investment, because “investors will have confidence that…it is energy that is creating value.”
