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Africa Is Awash In Sunshine – Energy That Will Help Empower The Continent
“Africa is not burdened with telecom lines and as a result, it went straight to mobile communications,” says Chris Kemper, chief executive of Palmetto, a clean energy and social-impact company, in a talk with this writer. “The same thing can be said for clean energy and clean technology.”
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy
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Solar Water Pumps Have Been Around Since the 1970s: Here’s Why They Haven’t Scaled
Solar water pumps, which have been around for years, are becoming far more affordable thanks to declining solar panel prices and new business models – particularly for the roughly 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide. So why isn’t the industry taking off? Makena Ireri and Jenny Corry Smith of CLASP, a group of 14 donor organizations working to scale markets and reduce the prices of off-grid technologies, present several reasons. They explore solutions for making solar irrigation systems a priority in the off-grid conversation.
- Categories
- Energy
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Namibia Announces $338 Million, 5-Year Renewable-Energy Strategy
The country, which is the driest in sub-Saharan Africa and has more than 300 days of sunshine a year, “stands to benefit as the worldwide boom in the solar market results in reduced costs and improved efficiency of solar photovoltaic panels and related equipment,” Haulofu said.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- renewable energy
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Global Solar Installations to Reach Record High This Year
The rise forecast this year will be driven mainly by Europe - in particular Spain, the United States, India, Vietnam, as well as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
- Categories
- Energy
- Tags
- renewable energy
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Cheaper Loans Could Take Solar Power to More Rooftops in India
As the residential rooftop solar segment is a diverse market, loans to this sector need to be rethought keeping in mind the unique characteristics of the product.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
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Big Data, Big Opportunity: Is Data Science the Key to Universal Energy Access?
Rural dwellers at the base of the pyramid are living largely "data-less," un-digitalized lives – but that's changing quickly with the spread of pay-as-you-go energy and the financial access it enables. In spite of the dangers of wrongly screening out customers as potential credit risks, denying them both further electrification prospects and access to credit, Guilhem Dupuy of GAIA Impact Fund and Thibault Lesueur of Solaris Offgrid take an optimistic view. They discuss why new off-grid energy data is an opportunity for increased investment, industry growth and economic justice.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
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Viewpoint: Opportunity Zones Can Drive Development Of US Renewable Energy
Opportunity Zones give both individuals and corporations the chance to re-invest existing capital gains into Qualified Opportunity Zone Funds (“QOFs”) in order to receive tax breaks for helping fund investment in impoverished areas.
- Region
- North America
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Freak Weather Poses New Risk to India’s Renewables Goals
Extreme weather events seem to have become the latest risk to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s renewable energy goal to quadruple solar power generation to 100 gigawatts by 2022.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- South Asia
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