Botswana will introduce renewable energy feed-in tariffs for electricity generation by March next year, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
Under such a scheme, renewable energy suppliers are paid for generating electricity to the country’s national grid.
Botswana imports 72% of its power from South Africa state-owned power utility Eskom and has a total electricity demand of about 400 MW.
Independent power projects in the programme will range from tiny schemes to 5 MW. All projects above this will be implemented through power purchase agreements with the state-owned Botswana Power Corporation.
“We are presenting the final report in November. So we are going to set an office in parallel because we know it is going to be approved. We are looking at end of March next year,” Benoni Erskine, Director of Energy at the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, told Reuters.
He was speaking on the sidelines of an African power conference in Johannesburg.
Renewable energy is expected to be generated from biogas and biodiesel. Companies from Mauritius, China and neighbouring South Africa have shown interest in clinching the power deals.
Edited by: Reuters
