Botswana awards first large-scale solar contract to Scatec – newsdubai

State-owned Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) has awarded Norwegian company Scatec ASA SCATC.OL a contract to build a 50 megawatt (MW) solar plant, the companies announced on Wednesday.

This is BPC’s first utility-scale renewable energy project as Botswana seeks to increase power supply and increase the share of clean energy.

Under the terms of a Power Purchase Agreement signed on Wednesday, Scatec will finance, build, own and operate the solar plant and recoup its investment by selling electricity to BPC over 25 years.

“The plant is our first and largest grid-connected solar plant and we expect the project to be operational by June 2024,” said BPC CEO David Kgoboko, adding that procurement of another large-scale solar plant was underway.

The plant will be located near the mining town of Selebi-Phikwe, 400 km east of the capital Gaborone.

Botswana currently has no large-scale solar power generation, and its national energy needs of 600 MW are met predominantly by state-owned coal-fired plants.

Provided with over 212 billion tonnes of coal, fossil fuels are likely to dominate electricity generation for the foreseeable future, but Botswana has a target of at least 18% of national output to be generated from renewable energy by 2030.

In May, Botswana invited bids from independent power producers to build another 200MW power plant consisting of two units of 100MW each, with the plants expected to be commercially online in 2026/2027.

Scatec is one of the leading renewable energy solutions companies in the world with ongoing wind, hydro and solar energy projects in Africa, Asia and South America.