utility companies are grappling with a new, 21st-century business model<\/a>. Renewable energy from numerous sources \u2014 called the distributed grid \u2014 will soon provide as much or more power than the conventional, centralized grid. It\u2019s a big change.<\/p>\nNew York, Vermont and Hawaii are among those states with similar ambitions. Hawaii aims to be 100 percent renewable by 2045.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s happening around the world. Clean energy investment has been a priority in China, Europe and Brazil, just a few of the places expanding their solar, wind and geothermal energy capacities.<\/p>\n
South Africa, for example, has a number of solar energy projects underway. In May, Eskom, the country\u2019s state-owned power utility, signed a 20-year power-purchase agreement with the Kathu Solar Park. That project alone will add 100 megawatts to the national grid by the end of 2018. Kathu Solar Park will use innovative thermal storage technology. When it comes online, it is expected to supply 80,000 households across South Africa, reduce carbon emissions by 300,000 metric tons annually and bring 1,200 new jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
California outshines all other U.S. states in solar power. The solar dominance was achieved by a combination of local, state and federal laws and incentives for businesses and ordinary citizens to adopt solar and other renewable energy technologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":11543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[232,228,95],"content_type":[],"series":[222],"yst_prominent_words":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Solar energy lights the way from California to Africa | YALI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In California, renewable energy, specifically solar, has proven to be beneficial. Here's how the technology is making its way to Africa.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Solar energy lights the way from California to Africa | YALI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In California, renewable energy, specifically solar, has proven to be beneficial. Here's how the technology is making its way to Africa.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/solar-energy-lights-the-way-from-california-to-africa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Young African Leaders Initiative Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-08T21:53:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-11-20T16:26:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Optimized-SolarStar_Full.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"798\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","featured_img_url":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Optimized-SolarStar_Full.jpg","post_tag_names":[{"term_id":232,"name":"Climate","slug":"climate","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":241,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":48,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":228,"name":"Energy","slug":"energy","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":237,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":14,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":95,"name":"English","slug":"english","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":99,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":665,"filter":"raw"}],"post_category_names":[{"term_id":14,"name":"Environment","slug":"environment","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":90,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":79,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":14,"category_count":79,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Environment","category_nicename":"environment","category_parent":0}],"post_series_names":[{"term_id":222,"name":"YALIGoesGreen","slug":"yaligoesgreen","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":231,"taxonomy":"series","description":"","parent":0,"count":102,"filter":"raw"}],"post_content_type_names":false,"cmb2":{"hero_title":{"_yali_hero_title_option":"no","_yali_hero_attribution_option":"","_yali_hero_subtitle_option":""},"related_content":{"related_content_option":"no"}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11541"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15270,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11541\/revisions\/15270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11541"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=11541"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=11541"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"California](\"https:\/\/yali.state.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/CaliforniaTopsUS-States_English-1-300x216.jpg\")
<\/a>