The SolarX Grand Challenge competition aims to foster entrepreneurship and innovation to address Africa's energy gap with solar solutions.

The International Solar Alliance launched the SolarX Grand Challenge competition to support entrepreneurship and innovation in Africa. The SolarX Grand Challenge competition will inspire innovators and researchers to provide high-value innovations that the solar industry desperately needs to accelerate the application of solar systems.

The competition will select 20 start-ups and innovators from countries across Africa, and each winner will receive a cash prize of US$300,000. The winning entrepreneurs will participate in an accelerator program and gain access to African markets.

Ajay Mathur, Director General of the International Solar Alliance, said: "The SolarX Grand Challenge competition is part of our two-pronged strategy to promote solar deployment in Africa. In line with this strategy, we are creating a solar facility to help African countries get more investment. In addition to getting investment In addition, we need to build local PV project planning pipelines.”

The inaugural SolarX competition will focus on attracting investment in the solar industry, bridging the gap between energy demand and supply, and promoting the growth of Africa's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Mathur said: “Africa has an estimated solar power potential of 7,900 GW, but currently only four African countries have entrepreneurial ecosystems, so there is a huge gap between demand and supply for power generation. African start-ups attract less than 1% of global venture capital. We want to change that by launching the SolarX competition.”

The SolarX Grand Challenge competition will announce the shortlist by April 2023 and the winner by June 2023.