The Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius has inked a $163 million deal with renewable power producer Qair to supply 60 Mega Watts of solar power. This puts the country closer to its target of generating 60 percent of electricity from renewables by 2030.
In the country’s most significant investment in the energy sector over the last 15 years, Qair plans to commission four new solar power plants and battery storage systems by next year.
“This flexible and scalable technology allows for the integration of renewable energy into the grid by shifting solar power generation to the evening peak demand, where traditional solar power plants do not produce, ” said Olivier Gaering, Managing Director at Qair Mauritius, “They are also designed to provide stability to the grid using the latest battery energy story technologies thus contributing to the phasing-out of fossil-fuel powered plants.”
According to Mauritius’ Central Electricity Board (CEB), the country has an installed power generation capacity of 876.76 MW, out of which 498.47 MW are from CEB and the remaining 378.29 MW are from Independent Power Producers, Medium Scale Distributed Generators and small-scale Distributed Generators.
In 2020, 76.1% of the country’s electricity was generated from non-renewable sources: coal (39.5%), fuel oil and diesel (36.6%). The remaining 23.9% was from renewable: bagasse or sugarcane pulp (13.3%), photovoltaic (PV) (5.1%), hydro (4%), wind (0.6%) and landfill gas (0.9%).
The rise of fossil prices due to the Ukraine war and other shocks have pushed up power prices in the country, strengthening the case for cheaper renewables.
Mauritius Economic Development Board (EDB) indicates that the country has commissioned 100 MW of wind and solar power capacity in the last few years and targets an additional 200 MW by 2025 and 435MW by 2030.