Clean Botswana
for fossil fuel utilised in rural areas. The activities in the project are designed to remove barriers to the widescale utilisation of renewable energy and low GHG technologies to meet the basic electricity needs of individual households in terms of lighting, power for small radios and TVs, and income-generating activities. The project was also conceived to further Government of Botswana objectives to promote renewable energy and encourage the development of the private sector industry in the provision of renewable energy in the country. The RE Botswana programme was implemented for five years. The proposed strategy to deliver the products and services for the RE Botswana project were to set up a business format franchise, hence the formation of BPC Lesedi (Pty) Ltd. The approach selected to implementation was a “fee for service� with a business franchise model. BPC Lesedi was then set up by the Botswana Power Corporation as a 100% subsidiary to provide energy services to the rest of the population as complementary to the grid.
contribution of electricity generated from renewable energy sources. REFIT has a sustainable cost-reflective tariff structure and a regulatory framework that reduces the risk for investors and developers. Confidence in REFIT can be achieved by having in place clear and transparent guidelines. REFIT for Botswana has adopted the following: a. Solar and bio-energy as the major technologies to be implemented; b. Maximum capacity limit as 5 MW for each project. The Government of Botswana is currently in the approval process of REFIT.
Renewable Energy based Rural Electrification for Botswana (RE Botswana) The Government of Botswana and Global Environment Facility (GEF) through United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) signed an agreement to implement the Renewable Energy Based Rural Electrification Programme for Botswana (RE Botswana). The aim of the project is to reduce Botswana’s energy related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by promoting renewable and low Greenhouse Gas (GHG) technologies as a substitute
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Several strategies are being implemented to advance the use of renewable energy in Botswana. These include policy formulation, regulation, training and the technical implementation of projects.
BPC Lesedi targets mainly households, agribusinesses, Government facilities and businesses in rural areas that are unable to connect to the grid. These include customers in grid connected villages, off grid villages and households outside the village boundary or in localities. BPC Lesedi has a target of approximately 50,000 households in 10 years. The country has been divided into six regions and the national roll out will be phased moving through the country region by region but also taking a few villages from all other regions to test the market and product uptake. At full operation, the Company has a head office in Gaborone which covers six regions (Gaborone, Serowe, Maun, Gantsi, Francistown and Tsabong).
Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Plant (CSP) A 200 MW prefeasibility study on CSP was completed in 2008. World Bank has availed funds (as a loan) and African Development Bank (as a grant) for a bankable feasibility study which is on-going and is expected to be completed in September 2012. Independent power producers are to take over the development and implementation of the plant after the completion of the bankable feasibility study.
MW Photovoltaic (PV) Power Plant The Government of Japan has assisted the Government of Botswana with around BWP83-million for development of a 1.3 MW photovoltaic power plant. The plant will be feeding in to the grid and operated by Government power utility (Botswana Power Corporation). The plant is expected to be operational by the end of August 2012. This is the biggest size that has ever been built in Botswana. The main disadvantage for large PV systems is that there is no storage and therefore during cloudy days or after sunset, the power plant will not be producing any power.
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