Generating all of this energy does more than just help Africans keep the lights on and the air pure — it also means that they gain a valuable resource to trade internationally. One of Africa’s biggest trading partners, India, is looking forward to growing the relationship, as Africa increases its participation in the India-led solar organization, International Solar Alliance. The increase in participation is secured with a$2 billion line of credit for African solar development from EU, China, ASEAN Countries.
In addition to global partnerships, the solar energy industry opens up a plethora of opportunities for entrepreneurs, both in Africa and abroad. Because the majority of the continent is in need not only of energy generation, but infrastructure to support that energy, and supply utilities that run off of electricity (namely telephone and internet services), the number of potential businesses that are in demand will only grow with the electrical supply available.
Securing energy is the first step to bringing African nations out of poverty and increasing the level of technology available to the population — and Africa’s leaders know that. With significant investments into the future of solar energy, including key partnerships and modelling behavior from leadership, Africa may well become a global energy leader in the future. For now, the goals are to bring electricity to as many Africans as possible, encourage innovation, and drive aggressive economic growth with solar power.
Introduction Currently, the countries potentially or de facto politically dependent on the world prices for hydrocarbon resources and politics of the countries exporting hydrocarbons, are actively developing and introducing renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, water, biomass, with the aim of improving their energy security, the ecological situation and introducing the so-called “Green economy”[1]. According to the 2015 year data more than 100 countries are introducing renewable energy sources in their national energy systems. The most popular among these sources are solar and wind energy. Thanks to the technological progress the following important factors have been obtained: 1. In 2016, there has been created solar battery, converting solar energy with an efficiency of 34.5%, this fact was considered impossible previously and thought to be reached not earlier than in 2050. 2. In 2016, there has been achieved a surplus of electricity generation from renewable energy sources in Germany, thanks to it, gas-fired power plants were temporarily disabled. According to [2] solar energy is more promising and high-tech than wind or water energy. The beginning of the solar energy birth is considered to be 1973 – the year of the first energy and oil crisis. During the crisis all the Arab countries, the members of the OAPEC, Egypt and Syria ceased to supply oil to the countries such as the UK, Canada, Netherlands, the USA and Japan because they supported Israel during the hostilities with Syria and Egypt [3-5]. The oil crisis of 1973 was the first and the biggest energy crisis in the history, when the hydrocarbon resources recovery rates were used to create political pressure on the world community. Later in 1975, 1979 and 1985 the EEC adopted a program to stimulate the development of non-nuclear energy; the central position in the program was given to solar energy. Currently, the budget of the Russian Federation directly depends on the world hydrocarbons prices. The revenue diversification and share expanding of Russia on the European energy market, particularly solar energy
Figure 1 – Total installed production capacity of solar energy As the graph shows, the production capacity growth dynamics is positive that indicates priority and dynamic development. China, Japan, Germany, Italy, the USA are the leading countries in solar energy production. Figure 2 shows the percentage distribution of solar energy production capacity all
