The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) announced it has provided a grant to Kenyan engineering company Xago Africa Limited for the development of a 40 MW grid-connected PV plant combined with a utility-scale storage system in Siaya County, in the southwest part of Kenya.
USTDA said that battery manufacturer Suniva will provide the storage technology and analytics services for the project, which is said to be the first utility-scale battery storage installation in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The County Government of Siaya (CGS) issued an expression of interest to identify and purchase the land for the $70 project in early 2015, while Xago Africa has so far conducted the feasibility studies for the back-up batteries.
The plant will be built through a public-private partnership.
The government of Siaya is seeking to attract companies interested in investing in solar energy production. Solar development, the government said, will benefit from energy zones with adequate road networking and proper security that will be established within the county. The county government is also planning to provide incentives to construction companies that will incorporate green technology in their buildings.
Furthermore, the county’s Annual Development Plan 2016-2017 encourages households to use energy conserving jikos and alternative energy sources especially solar energy in order to improve access to power.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.