The first 2024 SADC Sustainable Energy Week (SADC SEW) conference that commences tomorrow in Gaborone to be officiated by president Advocate Duma Boko holds immense potential to enable the Southern African region to be energy secure, Minerals and Energy minister Bogolo Kenewendo said. The five (5) days SADC SEW is co-hosted by the government of Botswana through ministry of Minerals and Energy and the SADC Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (SACREEE) respectively.
Addressing the media on Tuesday, Kenewendo said the conference will bring together six (6) ministers of energy from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Malawi and Mozambique showing how crucial it is.
Kenewendo noted that Botswana and her counterparts in SADC are still grappling with energy deficiency and as such affect industries leading to weak economic performance in many occasions in the region.
She said the conference is a call to action as well as bold step towards sustainable energy and resilient energy production for the Southern Africa region.
“SADC’s potential on the renewable energy is vast and remain untapped. It is now time for us to come together and power of region to sustainable energy. We need to achieve security of supply and that will be followed by sound economic security and protection of jobs across important sectors,” she added.
Kenewendo also said the theme of the conference “Accelerating Sustainable Energy Solutions for an Energy Secure SADC Region” calls for the SADC member states to secure their energy future as soon as now.
For her part, Kornelia Lipinge-Silishebo -the Project Coordinator for the SADC Renewable Energy Entrepreneurship Support Facility at SACREEE said SADC SEW provides an invaluable platform for dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaboration among key stakeholders in the energy sector.
She said the primary aim of the SADC SEW is to promote opportunities in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors along the entire energy value chain.
“The platform will enable SADC member states and the industry to share ideas on how the region could secure its energy stability through tapping into the renewable energy to balance the electricity supply deficiencies that is common in majority of countries that rely more on importing electricity,” she said.
Potential
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has in its 2021 research paper titled “Renewables Readiness Assessment: Botswana’’ noted that Botswana has considerable unexploited renewable energy potential, especially as solar, wind and bioenergy aim to use these renewables to achieve economic energy security and independence.
The renewable energy study was conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Minerals and Energy.
IRENA said Botswana announced at the end of 2020 that renewable energy would account for at least 15% of the country’s energy mix by 2030, with 50% renewable energy contribution to the energy mix by March 2036.
Also, IRENA observed that is the case in most countries of the region, Botswana’s power system is characterised by unreliable power supply, lack of investment, poor maintenance and high service costs.
“To meet its peak power demand, Botswana imports power from the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP) – mainly from South Africa – and when imports are not available, resorts to the use of costly backup diesel power plants,” explained IRENA in the study