Presenting their findings at a seminar yesterday, the experts said harvesting invader bush from farmland could feed an electricity plant of between five and ten megawatts (MW).

They said 60 000 tonnes of wood a year could be harvested from an area approximately 8 600 hectares in size.

The Finnish experts were chosen because Finland has wide experience in that field, with about 500 power plants running on wood chips and wood pellets produced from the vast forests in Finland.

"Due to bush encroachment, thousands of hectares of valuable farmland cannot be used for livestock farming and herds have dwindled from once two million animals to 800 000," said Arvo Leinonen, leader of the Finnish team.

"About N$700 million is lost each year in tax revenue to the Namibian government from agriculture due to production lost because of bush encroachment."

Leinonen told the seminar that they studied various mechanical methods to chop, cut and saw off the bushes at the farm of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) near Otjiwarongo.

The CCF is producing about 2 000 tonnes of wood bricks, pellets and chips annually, which the organisation sells as firewood.

Another use of invader bush in Namibia is to produce charcoal.

About 40 000 tonnes a year is produced, 99 per cent of which is exported.

Charcoal is increasingly becoming a welcome extra income for commercial, communal and emerging farmers as well as resettlement beneficiaries.

NamPower's Managing Director, Paulinus Shilamba, told the meeting that the electricity utility was committed to eventually buying electricity from plants such as these proposed by the Finns, as well as electricity generated from other renewable sources like the sun (solar energy) and wind power.

Several independent power producers (IPPs) have already lined up to invest in wind power farms to sell the electricity to NamPower.

The wood-to-power study was jointly financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Finnish government.

The Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN), in collaboration with the Namibia Agricultural Union and the Namibia National Farmers' Union, is already implementing the EU-funded Combating Bush Encroachment for Namibia's Development (C-BEND) project.

This will lead to the establishment of a small independent electricity plant fed with invader bush in the Otjozondjupa Region.

It is envisaged to sell the estimated half megawatt of electricity generated by this plant to the regional electricity distributor Cenored.

Gerrit Clarke of the Electricity Control Board (ECB) said the Board was drafting a policy to regulate the sale of electricity generated by IPPs, which would have to apply for a licence from the ECB.

This policy would widen the scope for investment in alternative electricity generation like wind, solar and biomass.

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