May 18 2005
The Chinese CMC International Tendering Corporation notified RWE SCHOTT Solar that, effective from April 2005, it has won the contract for electrification of approximately 26 villages in Gansu Province.
The project partners on the Chinese side are the Chinese Tendering Corporation and the future owner and operator of the plants, GanSu Huineng New Energy Development Co Ltd. Negotiations with the partner companies over the specific project plan are now underway.
The project is part of the Chinese government's Brightness Program. The extremely remote villages in the province, which have never had an electricity supply, are now to be equipped with their own independent power grids called "minigrids". These local grids will be supplied by hybrid diesel-solar electricity generators directly on site – and it is envisioned that 90 % of the total power generated will be solar-electricity.
The total budget of the million project includes the costs for components assembled on site, such as batteries, as well as diesel engines and the installation of the plants. The costs for training the local operators will also be covered by this figure.
On the German side, the project is being accompanied and supported by the KfW, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (Reconstruction Loan Corporation), and the GTZ, Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit (German Agency for Technical Cooperation). This project means that RWE SCHOTT Solar GmbH has once again successfully demonstrated its expertise in the area of rural electrification, particularly in Asia.
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