Solarcentury Africa’s 160 MW merchant solar projects in Botswana and Namibia; SPS to build 10 MW plant to power B2Gold’s Otjikoto mine; AXIAN is buying GreenYellow’s PV assets in Madagascar and Burkina Faso.
100 MW solar project in Botswana: Sub-Saharan Africa focused solar and storage projects developer Solarcentury Africa has entered a strategic partnership with the Energy & National Resource Corporation (Botswana) (ENRC). The duo will build a 100 MW solar project near Palapye in Botswana, adjacent to Morupule Coal Mine. The project has received electricity generation licence from the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA). It has also completed the grid impact assessment with the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC). Currently, the 2 project partners are conducting an environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) for the planned facility.
60 MW solar plant in Namibia: Solarcentury Africa has also secured a generation licence from the Electricity Control Board (ECB) in Namibia for a 60 MW solar plant. To be jointly developed by SolNam Energy, Solarcentury said the project will be built near the Kokerboom substation. Financial close is targeted in 2024. This is Solarcentury’s 2nd merchant project in Namibia and will primarily focus on supplying power to Namibian customers. The 1st merchant project of the company was the 20 MW Gerus Solar Plant that’s due for construction in the coming months. A merchant project sells its electricity in the wholesale or spot market, instead of entering bilateral contracts.
Solarcentury said the merchant PV projects like the ones in Botswana and Namibia, open the opportunity to deliver significant new renewable power generation capacity quickly and cost effectively. Power generated from these projects will be fed into the South Africa Power Pool (SAPP).
10 MW solar plant for Namibian gold mine: Sustainable Power Solutions (SPS) will develop and fund the construction of a 10 MW solar power plant in Namibia. Due to become operational by 2024-end, it will be constructed for NAD 200 million ($10.6 million). Located on Maxwell Farm in North Central Namibia, the project will be grid connected via NamPower’s new Eldorado substation. Here it will be allocated under NamPower’s Modified Single Buyer (MSB) framework to gold producer B2Gold’s Otjikoto Mine. Under NamPower’s MSB framework, independent power producers (IPP) can produce and sell electricity directly to regional electricity distributors, large industrial and mining companies along with municipalities. SPS explained that this is an improvement over the previous single-buyer model where electricity could only be sold to NamPower.
GreenYellow is selling some of its assets in Madagascar and Burkina Faso to AXIAN. (GreenYellow)
Solar acquisition in Madagascar and Burkina Faso: Pan-African group AXIAN has acquired solar assets in Madagascar and Burkina Faso from French IPP GreenYellow. AXIAN is acquiring minority shares of GreenYellow in their joint ventures (JV) in Madagascar including the 40 MW solar with 5 MWh storage capacity. This they call as the largest solar power plant in the Indian Ocean. The Madagascar deal also includes 4 hybrid plants in Sava and Menabe with a combined PV capacity of more than 6 MW.
AXIAN is also buying 95% of the shares of GreenYellow’s 30 MW power plant in Nagréongo, Burkina Faso. The company aims to grow its portfolio to 500 MW of renewable energy capacity in Africa over the next 3 years.
