POWER December 2016 - 16

5. Solar carpet. The 52.5-MW Shams
Ma'an Solar Power Plant in Jordan was commissioned
this October. Courtesy: Business Wire
6. It takes a village. Ketumbeine, a rural
village in Tanzania with about 800 residents,
now has its own mini-grid comprising 16 kW
of solar photovoltaic panels, a 45-kWh lithiumion
battery bank, and a back-up genset that
was built and financed by French multinational
power company ENGIE. Courtesy: Alliance for
Rural Electrification
7. Cuban revolution. Heightened interest
in large-scale solar photovoltaic power
could transform Cuba's power mix. Courtesy:
Amaury Perez Sanchez
Jordan Gets 52.5-MW Solar
PV Plant
A 52.5-MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant
commissioned this October in Jordan will
generate about 1% of the Middle Eastern
nation's power (Figure 5).
The plant uses more than 600,000 Series
4 thin-film modules manufactured by
Arizona-headquartered First Solar. The
company said that the modules would
help the plant deliver up to 5% more energy
than conventional crystalline silicon
panels. The modules are also mounted on
single-axis trackers, which will allow the
facility to generate up to 20% more energy,
First Solar said.
The plant is owned by a consortium
of investors consisting of Diamond Generating
Europe, Nebras Power Q.S.C., and
the Kawar Group. A notable aspect of the
plant is that it was built by a predominantly
Jordanian workforce. " Shams Ma'an
has facilitated the transfer of several gigawatts
of First Solar's knowledge and experience
to Jordan. Our hope is that the
skills acquired through this project will
further enable Jordan's solar energy ambitions, "
said Dr. Raed Bkayrat, First Solar's
vice president of Business Development
for the Middle East.
Tanzanian Village Gets
Mini-Grid with Unique
Business Model
French multinational power company ENGIE
on October 20 inaugurated a mini-network
comprising 16 kW of solar photovoltaic
panels, a 45-kWh lithium-ion battery bank,
and a back-up genset to supply power to
Ketumbeine, a village in northern Tanzania
with about 800 residents.
The PowerCorner project (Figure 6)
was launched in early 2015. ENGIE said
the project
will be progressively
replicated
throughout Africa as part of one its
key objectives, which is to provide rural
populations with access to environmentally
friendly energy. The village with 161
households is situated about 36 kilometers
away from the nearest grid connection, in
16
northern Tanzania's Arusha region.
The Alliance for Rural Electrification,
an industry group established in 2006 to
represent the decentralized clean energy
sector, said on its website that among the
project's challenges was to come up with
a " compelling solution " that was compatible
with the dynamics of the community
while still being affordable.
The €140,000 project-financed entirely
by Engie-uses an innovative business
model that requires clients to pay an
upfront connection fee. It also involves
a smart meter to charge clients for their
consumption of power on a pre-paid basis.
Payments are submitted by mobile money,
an electronic wallet service that allows users
to store, send, and receive money using
a mobile phone. The project includes
a local operator in the village, who was
trained to manage the site and provide
technical and commercial services to clients.
" The
specific project will not pay off in
terms of economic return itself but it will
be tested for a roll-out of several minigrids
in Tanzania for ENGIE that will prove
the economics and returns of the business
model at scale, " the alliance noted.
-Sonal Patel is a POWER associate
editor.
Cuba Gives Green Light to
PV Technology
Cuba is in the midst of a renewable revolution
to transform, update, and adapt its
fossil fuel-dependent power mix to its
current energy needs.
Because Cuba has a relatively high solar
potential (~ 5 kWh/m2
feasible to adapt solar photovoltaic (PV)
technology to rural areas, islands, and
isolated communities, commercial interest
in PV technologies has increased exponentially
in the country over the past three
www.powermag.com
years. According to an approved governmental
strategy, about 700 MW of solar
PV will be installed by 2030 with a total
projected investment of $1 billion. Solar
is poised to account for about 4% of total
Cuban power generation (19,366 GWh in
2014, according to the International Energy
Agency) by 2030.
The boom of solar PV technology in
Cuba started in 2003 with the installation
of small-scale PV systems to electrify
schools and residences, medical facilities,
and pumping stations located in isolated
rural communities (Figure 7). A more ambitious
program is being developed today
to build modern PV plants near important
cities and towns in order to supply reliable
power directly to the grid. At the beginning
of 2016, about 22 MW of solar PV
capacity had been installed in Cuba, and
the country is expected to add another 25
MW this year.
Several foreign firms and companies are
involved in this program, such as Abu Dhabi
Development Fund, Chinese aerospace
firm AVIC, and the Spanish Agency of International
Cooperation for Development.
Cuban companies account for nearly 60%
of the design and construction operations.
Most PV panels used in Cuban PV farms
are assembled by state-owned company
Empresa de Componentes Electrónicos
Ernesto Che Guevara, located in Pinar del
Rio Province in western Cuba, which has
an annual production capacity of 15 MW.
The most-used PV technologies are single-
or multi-crystalline silicon, thin-film
amorphous, and cadmium-telluride.
There are also other collateral PV proj/day),
and it is
ects under way, such as the installation of
a 1.2-MW solar PV plant in a rum distillery,
the construction and field evaluation of 23
solar-hybrid systems (mostly at universities,
public buildings, and lighthouses), the
erection of local PV microgrids, and the use
of PV systems for water desalination.
The first grid-connected Cuban PV farm,
a 2.6-MW project, was inaugurated in
POWER | December 2016
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POWER December 2016

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