Rural electrification gets 5-year rollout

ALL government and public institutions, including churches and business centres in rural areas, will be electrified within the next five years, assuming that the requisite budgetary allocation is made, says the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Joseph Iita.

Addressing the parliamentary standing committee on information and communication technology yesterday, Iita said this means that no rural school will have to go without electricity any more. The chairperson of the committee, Swapo Party Member of Parliament Moses Amweelo, said a concern of the committee was that many rural schools cannot use computers because they do not have electricity. The new rural electricity distribution master plan was approved by Cabinet two months ago. It includes the electrification of businesses, but only up to the step-down transformers, and will – for the five-year period – exclude household connections.Iita agreed that the exclusion of individual homesteads is a socio-economic concern, but added that the normal countrywide rural electrification programme will resume after the completion of power distribution to government institutions. He nonetheless said the new approach would speed up the power distribution process, thus fast-tracking the improvement of educational and medical conditions in rural areas. About 25 per cent of rural Namibia is currently electrified. More than half of rural schools do not have electricity. The same situation prevails in other government buildings such as clinics and police stations. For 2011/2012, 94 schools across the regions will be electrified, costing more than N$94 million.Iita said it would cost about N$1,5 billion to electrify all rural localities, which would mean an annual amount of about N$73,6 million. There are 642 rural schools without electricity, as well as 59 774 rural households, and 98 government institutions still to be powered up, with most of these in the Caprivi, Kavango, Kunene, Ohangwena, and Omusati regions. Namibia has also adopted an off-grid energisation master plan, which aims to provide access to appropriate energy technologies to everyone living or working in off-grid, pre-grid or grey areas.The off-grid areas are those that will not have access to electricity for 20 years, but Iita said the intention is that no Namibian should wait that long, hence the introduction of renewable energy sources, like solar power, which he said is taking off as is illustrated by the high demand for the solar revolving fund, which has received 1 012 applications from April 2011 to March this year. The majority of loan applications were approved for the Omusati Region (22 per cent), followed by Oshikoto (13,4 per cent), and Ohangwena (12,1 per cent). To decentralise the availability of energy, the ministry will also set up energy shops in ten towns of ten regions. The southern African region is experiencing a dire energy deficit, and Namibia imports 60 per cent of its energy needs. Its contract for energy supply from the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) comes to an end at the end of next year. The energy directorate of the Ministry of Mines and Energy said Namibia is working on boosting its own energy generation capacity. The projects in the pipeline include the fourth turbine still under construction at the Ruacana hydropower station (that will add 90 megawatts), a coal-fired station at Arandis (300 megawatts), and cascading hydropower at the Orange River (120 megawatts). Also under consideration are the environmental impact assessment and technical studies on the proposed hydropower project at Orokawe in the Baynes mountains in Kaokoland, a project that Himba, Ovatjimba and Ovazemba traditional leaders are dead set against. The Mines and Energy Ministry said if the studies allow the project to go ahead, the Baynes hydropower station will generate 600 megawatts of electricity.