A not-for-profit utility cooperative from Texas has been awarded a contract to electrify a community in Liberia with a solar-plus-storage microgrid, to benefit around 400 homes and businesses.

French energy storage developer and system integrator Electro Power Systems (EPS) has hailed the speedy execution of a microgrid’s expansion in Somalia, which has just been completed in less than 30 days.

Interest in energy storage in the Middle East is ‘ramping up significantly’, as we reported last week in an extract from this interview with IHS Markit analyst Julian Jansen. His firm is forecasting 1.8GW of energy storage for the region by 2025 – from an installed base of next-to-nothing today. Jansen talked us through some of the drivers, market dynamics and the general picture of what we might see developing.

UK-based PV company Solarcentury is collaborating with the EU and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on a €5.7 million (US$6.56 million) electrification project in East Africa.

UK-based renewable energy company BBOXX announced Monday that it met with Faure Gnassingbé, the President of the Republic of Togo, to discuss the “CIZO” presidential initiative.

South Africa’s main utility Eskom said it has identified a need for as much as 2,000MW of energy storage on its networks, and has opened a testing facility to find the technologies most suitable.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has put out a tender request for a 25MW hybrid solar-diesel-storage project in Sierra Leone.

Electrification of remote areas of the developing world using solar, storage and microgrids can and should go further than just providing basics like lamps and phone chargers.

Sami Khoreibi, CEO of renewable energy project developer Enviromena, discusses storage in the Middle East and Africa’s energy market in the next decade.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is continuing its mission of funding priority development projects in emerging economies, this time by signing two grants that leverage US technology and investment to increase access to affordable, reliable electricity in Kenya.