The year the power crisis ends: 2019
Mbongeni Mguni | Friday June 12, 2015 16:41
According to Mokaila, in four years’ time, Botswana will be generating 1,200MW against a demand of 900MW. At this point, the country will be a net exporter of power into the region, opening up a new forex-spinning industry.
This week, government also revealed that electricity generation for domestic consumption has been pegged at 1,200MW, meaning whatever supply is coming out of Independent Power Producers will be for export. Here’s how government intends to push domestic generation to 1,200 within three years: A two year programme of intensive repairs to get the 600MW Morupule B power station to function at optimum capacity while ensuring the in-built 30 year lifespan.
The return of 120MW from Morupule A with a plan to expand this to 270MW by 2018. Two 300MW independently built and operated facilities contracted over periods of up to 20 years with the BPC. Expansion of the 70MW Matshelagabedi diesel plant to 105MW by July 2015. Should all the works go according to plan, the BPC will find itself in the enviable position of being able to sell some of the power supplied to it, into the Southern African Power Pool, where desperate neighbours are prepared to pay a premium for supply.
However, consumers have watched the BPC’s best laid plans go up in smoke repeatedly over the years and Gaborone Bonnington South MP, Ndaba Gaolathe, voiced the inherent scepticism most recently. “I refuse to accept the explanation on delays at Morupule B because everything that the ministry has done over the past few years has never been on time, from Morupule B, Morupule A, Coal Bed Methane project and others. There’s nothing that has been done on time,” he said during a Public Accounts Committee hearing into the books at Mokaila’s ministry.
Mokaila is equally cautious to make a blood oath on the power crisis, knowing how mammoth, sensitive, variable and complex power projects are. A few tugs at any part of the precariously planned projects could unravel the 2019 vision. “In the short term, the four units at Morupule B are expected to be functional after the ten month remedial repair and I think you are saying ‘we have heard you say it before’. “But they are all running as we speak, but don’t ask me for how long,” he said as nervous titters reverberated around the conference room on Tuesday.