After approving investment for the acceleration of energy storage deployment in developing countries to the tune of US$1 billion a few months ago, the World Bank has now approved a US$300 million loan to do the same in China.

Over the next five years, a US$50 million pot will be invested to promote a sustainable supply chain for lithium, graphite and the other minerals and metals

Homeowners across Afghanistan are set to benefit from the country’s first pay-as-you-go (PAYG) home solar systems combined with energy storage batteries, being delivered in a pioneering new programme.

In today’s third and final instalment of our series to welcome in 2019, we look at what our respondents are expecting to see this year, what they would like to see happen and some of the ways they will be trying to fulfil those expectations.

Kenya’s government has launched a plan for total electrification in the country by 2022, which acknowledges the role that off-grid systems, mini-grids and stand-alone solar plants can have in complementing extensions to the grid and mitigating higher loads.

Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) will issue a request for bids (RfB) for a 160MW hybrid solar and wind project combined with battery energy storage in the state of Andhra Pradesh on 20 August.

Madagascar’s Ministry of Water, Energy and Hydrocarbons (MEEH) has released a list of six pre-qualified bidders for the country’s 25MW(AC) Scaling Solar tender, which is the first to include energy storage in its remit.

The World Bank plans to make energy storage an integral part of its ‘Scaling Solar’ program, that until now has been focused purely on facilitating large-scale solar tendering, predominantly in Africa.

The World Bank’s groundbreaking US$1 billion loan for Indian solar will partly focus on improving transmission for solar parks and innovation in wind and energy storage hybrids, according to a senior government official.