Africa is diversifying its energy sources by going green and investing in solar farms some of which have since been incorporated into the grid system to power African homes and businesses.Below is a list of some of the solar farms in Africa in no particular order.
De Aar, South Africa
South Africa’s solar farm is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, Africa and the Middle-East region. It was constructed within 28 months.The 175MW facility spans across 473 hectares. Funded to a tune of $400 million by Paschal Phelan the venture supplies power to the National Grid, and according to CNN, when there is fierce heat, it produces far more than the Grid can use, and the excess power goes to waste.
Sorati solar plant, Uganda
In the remote eastern district of Soroti lies Uganda’s $19 million solar power plant which adds to the country’s power generation plants.The renewable energy is planned to power over 40,000 rural households in the region. The station has a nominal capacity of 10MW, but is scalable to 20MW.
Burkina Faso’s solar farm in Zatubi
Located in the town of Zatubi, in the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou the solar farm is West Africa’s biggest solar farm. Sitted on a 55-hectare farm, the 33-megawatt (MW) plant was constructed at a cost of $56.7 million, and is expected to power 110,000 households in the country.
Morocco’s Noor solar power project
Morocco hopes to one day export solar energy to Europe, a vision that has pushed them to run one of the largest solar plans in Africa.
The solar plant aims to produce 2, 000 MW by 2020, 680 MW of which have already been successfully launched in Ouarzazate , Laayoune and Boujdour .
In Ouarzazate, a city also nicknamed the door to the desert, 1,400,000 sq m has been set aside to host solar panels which conduct the sun in a country that has around 330 days of sunshine a year.
Morocco received 60% of the cost from the European Union to fund the Ouarzazate project.
Kenya’s solar plant in Garissa
The Garissa Solar Plant is the largest grid connected solar power plant in East & Central Africa. This is the first time that Kenya has developed a major solar power plant to harness its abundant solar energy resource to diversify the power generation mix and reduce energy costs. Currently this project is contributing about 2% of the national energy mix and has significantly led to a reduction of energy costs in the country thereby promoting the development of clean, reliable, sustainable and affordable electricity.
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