How will aspire and rise help the Maldives' energy transition?

World Bank-financed projects ASPIRE and ARISE support the Maldives' energy transition by installing more than 53.5 megawatts of solar capacity and 50-megawatt hours of battery storage. This will reduce Maldives' annual import bill by about $30 million, with a project lifetime saving of $756 million over 25 years.

How will aspire solar projects benefit Maldives?

In general, the projects will benefit the people of Maldives and the government by lowering electricity prices and providing quasi-budgetary support. 2014 –The first 1.5 megawatt (MW) solar project under ASPIRE had four investors' bids, resulting in a high PPA of 21 US cents per unit of electricity.

Are battery storage costs based on long-term planning models?

Battery storage costs have evolved rapidly over the past several years, necessitating an update to storage cost projections used in long-term planning models and other activities. This work documents the development of these projections, which are based on recent publications of storage costs.

Do projected cost reductions for battery storage vary over time?

The suite of publications demonstrates wide variation in projected cost reductions for battery storage over time. Figure ES-1 shows the suite of projected cost reductions (on a normalized basis) collected from the literature (shown in gray) as well as the low, mid, and high cost projections developed in this work (shown in black).