Category: Solar Power

South Africa Solar Boom Signals Rebellion Against “Malfunctioning Energy Systems”

In many African countries, the future of electricity generation lies in renewables, and South Africa, where over 85% of the energy comes from coal-fired power plants, is already undergoing a shift. Last year, South Africa imported Chinese ...

Wealthy Nigerians Turn to Chinese Solar Panels as Grid Falters

Wealthy Nigerians are fueling a surge in Chinese solar panel imports, underscoring the country’s deep energy crisis, where more than one-third of the population continues to live without access to electricity. While acknowledging the electricity access problem, Ebipere K. Clark, ...

How China is Transforming Africa’s Power Sector

African imports of Chinese solar panels over the last year jumped by 60% to over 15 MW, a new record. The clean energy research body Ember published a report yesterday detailing Chinese solar exports to the continent. It uses Chinese customs data to show a marked year-on-year increase ...

China’s Solar Exports Fuel Rooftop Energy Revolution in Pakistan

By Zain Zaman Janjua Pakistanis are increasingly ditching the national grid in favor of solar power, prompting a boom in rooftop panels and spooking a government weighed down by billions of dollars of power sector debt.

China-Led Study Proposes Global Energy Network

A globally connected network of solar and wind energy could provide three times the global energy demand by 2050 at a lower cost than independent national power systems. This is the finding of a study led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with researchers from ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

How to Lure Chinese Financing Back to the Global South: Report

Global South countries face increasing financing pressure, endangering their ability to keep developing while also implementing measures to deal with a growing climate crisis. The disruption of global trade is coupled with a larger megatrend: flows of international capital to the developing world have turned negative. This means that countries are now routinely paying more to service loans than they receive in disbursements.

The vast majority of Global South borrowers ...

Nigeria Backtracks Solar Import Ban Amid China’s Supply Dominance

Nigeria recently floated, and then quickly walked back, a proposed ban on imported solar panels, most of which come from China. The about-face came just a month after the initial announcement, stirring familiar concerns about policy volatility in Nigeria and across Africa. But beneath ...

Niger’s Solar Surge: Powered by the Sun and Chinese Manufacturing

By Boureima Hama Solar panels like the ones on the roof of Elhadj Abdou's house are an increasingly common sight in Niger's capital, which is often hit by power cuts. "There are no more power ...

China’s Solar Exports to Global South Soar

A new report by the sustainable energy research outlet Ember shows that China’s total solar panel exports rose by 10% last year, but that its exports to the Global South lept by 32%, while exports to the Global North fell by 6%. The developing world overtook developed ...

South Africa’s Largest Private Solar Project to Power Chinese Chrome Smelting Factory

A Chinese consortium is developing a 100-megawatt solar power project in South Africa’s Limpopo Province to provide renewable energy to Samancor Chrome, one of the region’s largest minerals-processing companies. The project is a partnership between Samancor, CGN Africa Energy—a Chinese ...

Rethinking China’s Role in Africa’s Energy Future

By Jiaqi Lu Expanding electricity access is one of the most pressing challenges for Africa’s development, with 600 million people—roughly 43% of the continent’s population—still lacking access to reliable electricity. The 2025 Africa ...

Chinese Consortium Joins Botswana’s Renewable Energy Coterie

A Chinese consortium, Sinotswana Green Energy, is building a 100MW solar plant in Jwaneng, one of Botswana’s diamond mining towns some 170 kilometers west of the capital, Gaborone. The two Chinese members of this consortium are China Harbor Co ...

China Building More Wind, Solar Capacity Than Rest of World Combined: Report

By Matthew Walsh China is building almost twice as much wind and solar energy capacity as every other country combined, research published Thursday showed. The world's second-largest economy is the biggest emitter of the greenhouse ...
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