Indian solar firm Sterling and Wilson is set to construct the largest solar plant in Zambia, Bikesh Ogra, the president and CEO of the firm’s renewable energy and storage business has said.
Mr Ogra said that they are excited to venture into Zambia especially after the government’s pledge to support the development of 500 MW of new solar PV over the next few years.
“Zambia is one of the key markets for us considering the booming renewable energy segment and the Zambian government’s support for the development of 500 MW of new Solar PV plant in next couple of years,” he said.
Reports suggest that one in five people living in the country currently has no access to electricity.
Sterling and Wilson will construct a 54.3 MW solar PV plant in Zambia under the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Scaling Solar program. largest solar plant in Zambia will be located in Kafue district, southeast of Lusaka and is spread across 52 hectares of land.
Read:Burkina Faso unveils West Africa’s largest solar power plant
In the year 2015, Zambia’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) signed an agreement with IFC to develop two large-scale solar projects through Scaling Solar program. This will be Zambia’s first utility scale solar PV project and first under Scaling Solar Program exclusively for on grid application.
Neoen, a France based renewable firm is the contractors of the solar project. The firm will also act as Independent Power Producer (IPP) of the plant once it is commissioned.
Sterling and Wilson was ranked as the world’s largest pure play solar EPC company (outside USA and China) by IHSMarkit in Q1 2017.
The company has to its credit more than 2000 MW of best performing solar power plants across the world in various geographies including Asia & Africa. Currently it is constructing the world’s largest single location Solar PV plant of 1177 MWp in Abu Dhabi.
From being a predominantly India focused company in 2010, Sterling and Wilson now operates across the Middle East, Africa, Australia and Europe.
With its recent forays into wind and energy storage, Sterling and Wilson is perfectly poised to play a pivotal role in the global trend of moving away from thermal plants to a future of renewable energy with storage.