{"id":636,"date":"2021-07-10T02:56:32","date_gmt":"2021-07-10T02:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/?p=636"},"modified":"2021-07-10T02:54:02","modified_gmt":"2021-07-10T02:54:02","slug":"botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant","title":{"rendered":"Botswana issues licence for first large scale solar power plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Botswana<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Botswana energy regulator has granted a generation licence for a 100MW solar project to local firm Shumba Energy, a company executive said on Monday, making it the first independent power producer to set up a large scale solar plant in the country.<\/p>\n

Botswana does not currently have large scale solar power generation and its 600 MW national energy demand is met by state owned coal-fired plants and imports, primarily from South Africa and Mozambique.<\/p>\n

Locally-listed Shumba Energy plans to implement the project in two phases with construction of the first phase of 50 MW likely to start in the next six months.<\/p>\n

“With all the permits now in place we are now working on concluding the funding, with capital expenditure estimated at about $80 million for the whole project,” managing director Mashale Phumaphi told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Botswana has 212 billion tonnes of coal reserves and the fossil fuel is expected to continue to dominate power generation in the country in the near future, analysts have said.<\/p>\n

But investors have often raised concerns about the heavy dependence of African countries on coal-based power plants which release millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The diamond rich country, whose economy has contracted by close to 8% from a growth rate of up to 4% before the pandemic, plans to increase the share of renewables in its energy mix to 18% by 2030.<\/p>\n

Botswana has some of the highest levels of direct normal (solar) irradiation (DNI) – a measure of the amount of sunlight – at over 3,000 kWh\/m2 per annum, according to Solargis.com, a global agency on solar data.<\/p>\n

Phumaphi said the solar project had not signed any power off-take agreements but will operate as a merchant power producer feeding into the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). State-owned Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) is currently the sole electricity producer in Botswana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. The Botswana energy regulator has granted a generation licence for a 100MW solar project to local firm Shumba Energy, a company executive said on Monday, making it the first independent power producer to set up a large scale solar plant in the country. Botswana does not currently have large scale solar power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,8,244,16],"tags":[233,237,234,250,249,82,251],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-to-homepage","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana","tag-botswana-power-corporation-bpc","tag-shumba-energy","tag-solar-power","tag-southern-african-power-pool-sapp"],"yoast_head":"\nBotswana issues licence for first large scale solar power plant - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Botswana energy regulator has granted a generation licence for a 100MW solar project to local firm Shumba Energy, a ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Botswana issues licence for first large scale solar power plant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Botswana energy regulator has granted a generation licence for a 100MW solar project to local firm Shumba Energy, a ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-10T02:56:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2021\/07\/img-60e90b9b28adf.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Botswana issues licence for first large scale solar power plant\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-10T02:56:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant\"},\"wordCount\":315,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2021\/07\/img-60e90b9b28adf.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\",\"Botswana Power Corporation (BPC)\",\"Shumba Energy\",\"solar power\",\"Southern African Power Pool (SAPP)\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"to-homepage\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/botswana-issues-licence-for-first-large-scale-solar-power-plant\",\"name\":\"Botswana issues licence for first large scale solar power plant - 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