The government of Mauritius has announced to have commissioned and connected a 16.3MW solar farm to the Mauritian grid.
The country’s Minister of Energy and Public Utilities, Ivan Collendavelloo confirmed the reports and said the solar plant feeds into the Central Electricity Board (CEB) national electricity grid via the Riche Terre.
Also Read:Ethiopia seeks to install four solar PV projects
The 16.3MW solar park
The plant which is located at Solitude near Port Louis cost a whopping US $23m and was developed by Voltas Yellow Ltd on 33 hectares of land. According to the Minister, the solar park is a move to replace the country’s energy mix consisting mainly of coal fired power with clean, renewable energy.
Moreover, Mr. Ivan Collendavelloo said the Government has plans to increase use of renewable sources of energy from the current 22% to 35% by 2025.
“While bagasse (sugarcane waste) remains the key source of renewable energy (16%), Mauritius will also include hydro, wind, landfill gas and solar energy production in the mix. At present, six solar farms are operational in Mauritius, and four additional ones will be constructed in the months to come,” said Mr. Ivan.
The government also seeks international competitive bidding for all its power projects and favous joint ventures between the local private sector and international firms. The (CEB, has increased grid absorption capacity of intermittent energy from 148 MW to 160 MW over the last year. The million dollar solar project is expected to offset 28 280 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.
We are glad to hear, that Mauritius continues its way of renewable energy and we hope the country is able to reach 35% until 2025 and follows up its good way of clean energy usage.
Since 2012, our company itself realized several projects with more than 1,500 kWp on this island and we are very happy to see that there are more and more solar plants.