The Africa Development Bank approved a $142 million loan to help construct a 100 megawatt  solar power plant in the Northern Cape South Africa. This will be the first such loan for a renewable energy project in the country.

The loan is part of a $908 million needed for the construction of the power plant that will be built by a consortium led by a Spanish firm Abengoa, southAfrica.info reported.

The South African government aims to increase the country’s energy production from renewable energy by 17,800 megawatts by the year 2030. It plans to do this through collaboration with independent power producers.

Abengoa is already building two other solar plants in the Northern Cape: a 50 MW solar power plant near the town of Upington, and a 100 MW parabolic trough solar plant, dubbed KaXu Solar One, near the town of Pofadder.

The new parabolic trough solar plant, Xina Solar One, will be located alongside KaXu Solar One, and according to Abengoa the two 100 MW plants will “jointly shape the largest solar complex in Africa”.

Abengoa said in a recent statement that Xina Solar One would produce sufficient clean energy to power approximately 90 000 households while reducing South Africa’s carbon dioxide emissions by up to 315 000 tons annually.

Xina Solar one will incorporate a five-hour thermal energy storage system using a set of thermal storage tanks filled with molten salts. This will give the plant the ability to generate electricity after sunset or during cloudy periods, in addition to the ability to adapt energy production to the peaks of demand.

Abengoa CEO Manuel Sanchez Ortega said the project illustrated “the maturity of solar-thermal technology, which can be efficiently stored and used when it is needed”.