How sustainable and cost effective is off-grid solar power system to Africa?
As you know, Africa has not exploited its non-renewable resources such oil, coal and some other fuels. Thus, we suggest some renewable sources of energy from water, wind and solar as well. Specially, Ethiopia is the richest country in the world in terms of water and solar resources.
ZTE has a strong capability on solar energy. We are trying to work together with the national electricity company and Ministry of Energy in Ethiopia. Hopefully, we can develop 100 mega watts of solar energy for the government and the whole country. Moreover, we have a plan to cooperate in power transportation as we have some ICT technology on power scheduling for the power management. This is how to transport power for electricity to the real requirement. It means that reducing the cost and enhance transport efficiency.
Regarding electric utilization, we have some products in rural areas for solar home system. One family can have such system to do the lighting and pumping for agriculture as well as for street lights. So we provide various solutions for many demands using our solar system and enhance power efficiency as well as reduce the cost
Is it possible to mitigate carbon emissions vie introducing the PV solar power throughout Africa and other third world countries alone while the developed countries making use power that massively causes air pollution?
We can take China as an example; it is the largest producer and user of coal in the world, particularly, in winter. The family will burn the coal, the power also based on the coal so there is no blue sky in China. Now, China government is also focusing on how to use renewable energy in rural areas. The use of solar system and water power just like Ethiopia have been widely introduced in our country. China government has developed hydro-power system to reduce the air pollution. ZTE has the same target as the whole world in reducing the current level of air pollution by 2020.
Do you think Ethiopia is suitable to put in place such solar energy system?
Ethiopia is very suitable to develop solar energy as it is very rich of solar resources. Solar energy is very cheap. We have different types of solar energy systems.
ZTE renewable solution focus on grid-tied solar PV (photo voltaic) technology, we can provide grid-tied PV power plant solution (Plant scale: several MW to 100MW; Grid access voltage: up to 220kV), micro-grid solar power solution and off-grid solar power solution. The off-grid solar power solutions include solar street light solution, solar water pumping solution, solar home power solution and solar power for video security solution. ZTE renewable solutions can bring green value for customer.
What are your best practices in promoting green economy in the world?
As the global famous supplier for the renewable energy solution, ZTE's renewable energy solutions have been widely serving many countries and regions around the world. ZTE has rich EPC capability and experience in grid-tied PV power plant project.
By now, ZTE has executed more than 30 grid-tied PV power plant projects, and the total installed capacity has reached several hundred megawatts. The grid-tied PV power projects include 1.27MW PV power plant in ZTE Headquarter, 2MW PV power plant in ZTE Xili Industrial, 10.8MW PV power plant in Shenzhen BYD, Murata 1MW PV power plant, 30MW PV power plant in Inner Mongolia, 30MW PV power plant in Shanghai, 5.8MW PV power plant in Dongguan, Benin 22 sets of micro-grid PV power plant project, grid-tied PV power project in South Africa, Jordan, Tajikistan and etc. As off-grid solar power solutions adopt industrial leading level technology.
They have been widely used in more than 30 countries, which include Pakistan, Burma, Togo, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Djibouti, Niger, Chad, Kenya, Lesotho, etc. In Pakistan, there are more than 240,000 sets of solar home power system have been deployed. Nearly 100 million USD of solar street lighting system, solar home power system, solar water pumping system were supplied in China-aid foreign project in 15 African countries. There are nearly 15,000 sets of solar street lighting system in Togo Government solar street lighting project. There are 2,500 sets of solar street lighting system in Benin solar street lighting project.
Have you won any international awards so far?
In November 2012, ZTE and BhartiAirtel won Best Cost Efficiency Initiative at the AfricaCom Awards, with their innovative hybrid energy power solutions. Based on its recent analysis of the ICT green power solutions market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes ZTE Corporation with the 2013 Africa Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Leadership. ZTE Corporation's reliable power solutions offer green, uninterrupted power supply and energy-saving technologies, addressing many of the challenges relating to power shortage and environmental pollution facing the African continent.
