Uptake of renewable energy technologies low � Expert
Onalenna Kelebeile | Friday September 18, 2015 15:17
Ackim Zulu of the University of Zambia said at an international conference on clean energy for sustainable growth in developing countries here on Wednesday that barriers that impeded the development of renewable energy technology are identifiable.
The barriers include policy and legal matters, exotic technologies, lack of qualified personnel as well as low-cost financing.
He called for regionally integrated legal and policy frameworks, innovative financing mechanisms as well as adaptive technology transfers to overcome the barriers.
Zulu said renewable energy technologies included solar energy, bio-energy, hydro energy, wind energy as well as geothermal energy.
He said hydro energy projects existed in Botswana while the use of wind energy was at infancy stage though studies were ongoing for some assessments. He said, however, that plans for a 100MW wind farm are underway.
He noted that solar energy remained an abundant and extensive resource with Botswana producing 2300 KW/h per year while Namibia and Zambia generating 2200 and 2400 KW/h per year. Only 1.3 MW of solar energy has been connected to the national grid in Botswana.
Botswana International University of Science and Technology’s (BIUST) dean of engineering, Prof. James Katende said the Network of Excellence in Renewable Energy Technologies for Development (NEED) project would pave way for the widespread implementation of renewable energy technologies in southern Africa.
The NEED programme is intended to enhance adoption of renewable energy technologies in the target countries and subsequently in the whole of Southern Africa. The project that has been funded by the European Union at a tune of $1.2 million started in Zambia last year and will run for the duration of three years.
“This is a research network to foster the use of renewable energy and has a project consortium of five partners being Botswana, Germany, Nambia and Zambia,” said Katende.
Katende said the reasons for slow adoption of renewable energy technologies was lack of knowledge and adequate work force, insufficient coordination and exchange of renewable energy technologies related research activities and weak link between research and educational institutions.
Meanwhile, BIUST acting vice chancellor Prof. John Cooke said the conference came at an opportune time in Botswana’s energy and economic development history.
Cooke said Botswana might consider options for exploitation of a massive amount of coal in the ground that made 212 billion tonnes and at the same time consider the environmental consequences of that especially on the tourism sector. “The country must also consider the future effects of climate change especially on the already scarce water resources which are strongly needed for the mining of coal and minerals. This country also has the greatest potential of any country in the world for the solar generation of electrical power,” he added.
He said the future of Botswana’s energy production calls for sound decision making in the application of cleaner energy technologies such as the choice of technologies and physical scale.
“The physical scale is important to consider large power stations or community based smaller scale renewable generation to reduce environmental impact,” he noted.
Cooke said BIUST provided masters and doctoral degrees in major areas of science engineering and technology one of them being in energy engineering, which provides a strong focus on knowledge and research concerning both cleaner technologies of traditional fossil fuel use of energy production and in renewable sources of energy.
He said BIUST collaborated with other institutions in SADC and across the globe.
“We also have partnerships in wastewater reuse in agriculture, carbon capture and storage. We will also host the SADC satellite receiver to enhance earth observation and our geo-information systems and its applications and our involvement in the square kilometre array project will include training with radio telescopes and high powered computing facility with an intention of becoming one of the earth and aerospace observatories by 2022/23,” he said.