Botswana: Botswana cancels 100mw solar power tender, plans to reissue

The Botswana Power Corporation (BPC), has cancelled a tender in which it was seeking private investor partners to build a 100MW solar power plant, and plans to reissue the tender to make the project fully private owned, the state-owned utility said.

“The project which was initially structured as a joint venture between BPC and private producers will now be implemented through independent power producers, meaning it will be 100 percent privately owned,” the BPC said in a statement.

“A new tender is anticipated to be floated by end of June 2019,” said the BPC.

The tender in the southern African country had received 166 bids from both local and international power producers.

The state power supplier forecasts energy demand to more than double to 1,359MW by 2035 from around 600MW currently, and is modernising its power grid and sources to meet the surge.

It will be recalled that last year, Botswana approached Mozambique and neighbouring South Africa for assistance in beating a looming power crisis. Botswana’s newly built power station, Morupule B, experienced technical challenges that resulted in three

of its four generation units being nonfunctional.

Botswana, which in the past had relied on imports to meet its electricity needs, has in recent years banked on Morupule B.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s power crisis is affecting Botswana border areas. Towns in Botswana near the South African border are reported to have experienced a prolonged energy crisis as a result of load-shedding in Pretoria.

South Africa’s state-power company, Eskom, is facing generation capacity constraints and South Africa has been plagued by power cuts in the past year.