The Tataouine solar PV plant has been successfully connected to the national grid of Tunisia. The solar PV plant has an installed capacity of 10 MW. It will supply just more than 20GWh of power per year to the national grid.

The plant was built by Société Énergie Renouvelables Eni Etap (SEREE). This is a joint venture between Eni and ETAP (Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières) operating in the production of power from renewable energy sources.

Also Read: Construction of Rades C combined cycle power plant in Tunisia complete

Tataouine solar PV plant to guarantee savings of about 211,000 tons of CO2 equivalent

Over the course of its lifetime, this facility will guarantee savings of about 211,000 tons of CO2 equivalent. Through a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement, the generated electricity will be delivered to STEG (Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz).

Furthermore, Eni also manages the ADAM photovoltaic farm in Tunisia. The max capacity of its facility is 5MW. As a result, the Governorate of Tataouine’s neighboring ADAM field receives energy from it. This enables gas savings in addition to annual emissions reductions of more than 6,500 tons of CO2 equivalent. It is a hybrid generation system at the plant.

With the Tunisian solar PV plant, the nation of North Africa released its initial blueprint for solar energy transition in 2009. That strategy called for increasing the nation’s renewable energy sources’ capability.

However, by 2030, it vowed to generate 30% of its electricity from renewable sources. In addition, renewable energy sources produced 3% of the nation’s electricity in 2019.

Furthermore, in a 2020 report, the Natural Resource Governance Institute of Tunisia expressed worry that this goal was no longer attainable.

The major issue, according to it, is how COVID-19 will affect renewable energy projects. Tunisia is one of the African countries where the economic effects of the epidemic have been aggravated by the global energy crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook 2022.

The nation’s increasing disparity is escalating civil war, social unrest, and political instability.