OMARURU – The Minister of Mines and Energy Isak Katali says the Omburu solar power plant will improve the supply of electricity to the entire country and not only to the Erongo Region.
Katali made the remarks at the official groundbreaking ceremony of the plant on Friday at Omburu, near Omaruru in the Erongo Region.
He said: “This historic solar project will improve the supply of electricity to the country and not only to Erongo. It represents an important milestone in the development of the energy infrastructure in Namibia as a whole.”
Katali further said the government is “committed to the implementation of the provision of solar power and encourages the use of renewable energy as an alternative to coal electricity.”
The Omburu solar power plant is one of the many labour-based reneweable energy projects embarked upon after Namibia’s independence.
It will also be the first and largest utility-scale ground-mounted photovoltaic power plant and will feed power into the power grid for 25 years.
The 4.5 megawatts plant will produce about 11 025 megawatt-hours of clean and reliable electricity per year. It will feed carbon-free electricity into NamPower’s national grid, doing away with the production of 5 537 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
The plant will supply over one percent of Namibia’s global domestic power generation.
“In addition to that, the construction of this power plant will also provide in the future increase in electricity demands and population growth, thus avoiding power shortages, as we have seen in neighbouring countries like South Africa,” noted the mines and energy minister.
InnoSun Energy Holdings (Pty) Ltd, a Namibian renewable energy development company is the owner of Omburu Sun Energy (Pty) Ltd, a local independent power producer (IPP).
Grégoire Verhaeghe, the CEO of InnoSun Energy Holdings explains: “InnoSun foresees many more projects in the near future which will supply more energy capacity thus enabling Namibia to become a self-sustaining country.”
“Today’s occasion is therefore also testimony to the government’s commitment to ensure that Namibia reaches its objectives as set out in the National Development Goals (NDPs),” said Usuta Imbili, InnoSun Energy Holdings project manager.
The Development Bank of Namibia (DBN) and the Electricity Control Board (ECB) support the project, according to InnoSun.
By Regina Simasiku