At the Making Solar Bankable Event, organised by FMO and Solar Plaza, the winner of the Solar Shark Tank Competition 2018 was announced. The Bhrikuti Grid Solar Project in Nepal was the winner of the $100,000 grant. The Solar Shark Tank Competition is organised and sponsored by FMO, Access Power and Solar Plaza. The competition is for local developers that require development support to make their solar projects more ‘bankable’.
In this year’s competition 41 applications were received, from 24 different countries totalling a sum of 6,404MW. The three finalists all presented their case to the jury and the public during the event. The three finalists were:
- Bhrikuti, a 10MW ground mounted solar project in Nepal, the land leased for the project belongs to a local school which uses this lease income as an extra revenue stream
- Coffee Beams, a 10-20MW elevated-beam ground mount in Costa Rica, to be used in combination with coffee agriculture; the panels will provide shade for the coffee trees
- Bambou Masse, a 15MW rooftop solar in Benin, the panels will be placed on the roof of a shadow hall, intended for cultivation of plants and vegetables
The jury consisting of Vahid Fotuhi (Access Power), Linda Broekhuizen (FMO), Andrew Johnstone (Climate Fund Managers) and Sumeet Thakur (IFC) awarded the Bhrikuti project the $100,000 grant towards the development costs of the project from Access Power and FMO.
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