Lu Lixuan and his team have reaped fruitful rewards from their recent Nigeria trip. Lu's company, Zhejiang Jinxi Solar Energy Facilities Co. Ltd., won contracts from the Nigerian energy sector totaling about 40 million yuan ($6.3 million) to supply solar generation systems.

 "We are expected to provide 720 solar power systems and 9,000 PV modules [for Nigeria]," said Lu.

Before the Nigeria trip, the Yiwu-based solar module maker already signed deals totaling 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) for solar projects in more than 10 African countries including Ghana, Egypt and Liberia. All signs indicate that the momentum of China-Africa bilateral cooperation on solar technology is high and growing, despite the slump in the global solar industry since 2010.

Big, bright market

Nigeria has experienced a shortage of power supplies for many years and on an average its residents get only about 10 hours of electricity a day, according to Lu. However, the country has excellent potential for the development of solar energy with daily total sunshine of nine hours.

The Nigerian energy sector said it will take full advantage of its abundant solar resources while formulating the Development Plan for Renewable Energy in Nigeria.

"After week-long live demonstration of our electric power generation equipment [in Nigeria], more than 10 governmental departments and over 20 local governments expressed their high interest in buying our products, and soon signed agreements [with us] for supply of solar generation systems and PV panels," said Lu.

In fact, Nigeria's solar power is the epitome of renewable energy utilization in Africa.

According to a report from Lighting Africa in 2011, a joint World Bank and the International Finance Corp. program, in many of Africa's towns and villages, smoky kerosene lamps are used to meet lighting needs. And the African continent is mainly dependent on both wood and charcoal for cooking and heating homes, which contributes to indoor air pollution.

While Africa is magnificently endowed with the resources for clean power - abundant sunshine, wind and water - little is exploited, according to World Energy Council Vice President for Africa Abubakar Sambo.

This is something Jiang Zhongjin, an expert on Africa from Nanjing University, agrees with.

"Africa should look at ways to reduce use of firewood, crop straw, and manure by turning to alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind, and micro-hydro," Jiang told ChinAfrica.

"We were delighted to find some fishermen using our solar lanterns to fish at night [while on a visit to Africa]," said Huang Zixiang, Public Relations Director with Trony Solar, one of China's biggest manufacturers of thin-film solar energy equipment. "It shows that the demand for our solar products is huge."