Solar projects of 30 to 50 MW are growing everywhere on the African continent. This is overall good news given the number of Africans (600 million, or 50% of the population) who do not have access to electricity.
However, given the proposed economic models, financial set-ups and modest projects, it would not be inappropriate to ask if the production of solar energy on Lucie’s land is still ecological? If they are profitable for project promoters, are the financial parties involved, these micro-power stations, for the community, the communities and the state?
A 30 MW plant of the type recently built in West Africa requires at least 65 hectares of land on average where new generation plants, especially American ones, have the surprisingly ergonomic ratio of 84 MW per 2 hectares with, in premium, 36,000 liters of pure water produced.
However, in addition to being poor in land, African solar power plants have low local taxes. The materials are imported. The transfer of expertise component is weak. The few jobs created, including in cleaning, are usually foreign.
That’s not all. The financial arrangement induces very few banks and local actors. It is surprising that local banks, investment funds and insurance companies in Africa can not, in the absence of a seemingly impossible majority, have beneficial blocking minorities.
And as if it was not already too much, most financial montages of solar projects that grow everywhere in Africa sell the cost of KWH between 14 and 20 cents where the US offers between 8 and 9 cents .
A big emerging country like India, which has the triple advantage of a coherent state vision of renewable energy, a technological mastery of the thing and a sufficient financial capacity, manages to deliver the KWH to 2, 5 cents. Clearly, African solar power plants, almost imported, are expensive and will be difficult, unless urgent and salutary corrections, to fill the gap of electrification for lack of competitiveness.
At this stage, the involvement of the public authorities in the process seems to us necessary to frame the purchase of electricity contracts and restore the balance between the private interests (majority) and the general interest. If Morocco has been able to create the largest solar power station in the world is primarily through the involvement of the state, conductor, through its technical and financial arms.
A reason for hope, however, is that the African continent receives about twice as much irradiation as other European countries, or 2,000 kWh / m2, making it one of the most suitable continents for development. solar energy.
The future will necessarily be solar in the opinion of many scientists and industrialists who believe that the African potential is unbeatable. The only downside, the prices of solar photovoltaic installations continue to decline around the world (62% since 2010) but not in Africa. Attention to the reproduction, in renewable energies, of the paradox lived by the continent in the fossil industry.
