South Africa And Algeria's First 2GW Solar Project Breaks Ground, Chinese Solar Companies Win Most Quotas!

A few days ago, South Africa's Algeria 2GW solar project, which has been under tender since last year, finally broke ground. The first shovel of earth is located in the Algerian Sahara, covering an area of about 400 hectares (988.4 acres), with a capacity of 200MW, and is expected to be completed within 14 months. This is a milestone in the advancement of the local energy transition program.

The construction is said to be just one of the original plans. In March 2024, local state-owned Sonelgaz announced that it had signed 19 contracts with domestic and foreign companies for the construction of 20 solar projects with a total capacity of up to 3GW, with tenders to be completed in two stages.

The first was a tender for 2GW of solar power plants launched in February 2023, the winner of which was announced in November of the same year. The tender attracted companies from a wide range of countries, and in the end Algeria signed 14 contracts with eight bidders. It is worth noting that out of these 14 contracts, the construction of 9 power plants was awarded to Chinese companies.

The details are as follows:

The consortium formed by the reorganization of China International Water & Electric Corporation (CWE) and China Nuclear Industry Huaxing Construction (HXCC) Corporation won five projects with a total capacity of 780 MW:

(1) Batmet 220 MW power plant in M'sila Wilaya;

(2) Gueltet Sidi Saad in Laghouat Wilaya 200 MW power plant in Laghouat Wilaya;

(3) Douar El Maa 200 MW power plant in El Oued Wilaya;

(4) Abadla 80 MW power plant in Bechar Wilaya;

(5) Ouled Djelal Wilaya 80 MW power plant.

Shanxi Installation Group will build a 220 MW solar power plant at Ouled Fadel in Batna Wilaya.

China State Construction will develop a 200 MW plant at Tendla in the El M’ghaier Wilaya.

PowerChina NTL-SinoHydro will build a 200 MW plant at Laghrous.

PowerChina Zhongnan Engineering Corporation will build a 150 MW plant at Khanguet Sidi Nadji, both located in the Biskra Wilaya.

According to China Tendering & Bidding Public Service Platform data, Chinese companies' PV module procurement winning manufacturers are also mostly well-known Chinese PV companies or Chinese-foreign joint ventures, such as TWSolar, LONGi, Trina, Canadian solar and so on. This is an announcement on China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC)’s solar panel winning bid announced on this website in February this year:

In another 1GW tender, the construction of two of the power plants was contracted by an Algerian company, while the other two were shared by Algerian and foreign joint ventures.

Earlier, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has asked Sonelgaz to install 15GW of renewable energy by 2030, of which the 2GW tender is the first phase. Meanwhile, according to Algeria's Renewable Energy Development Plan 2022, the country's renewable energy capacity will reach 22 GW by 2030, of which solar PV will account for 62%.

However, solar power will only account for about 1.7% of Algeria's installed capacity of 460MW by 2022 and less than 1% of its power generation of about 690 GWh. With the country's strong push for renewable energy, this percentage is expected to rise significantly in the coming years. A number of global research firms have also issued optimistic forecasts for the overall PV market in South Africa.

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