MAURITIUS/KENYA: Mauritius aims for 40 percent use of renewable energy within a decade, power producers meet in Kenya

Record ID: 360971

  • Title: MAURITIUS/KENYA: Mauritius aims for 40 percent use of renewable energy within a decade, power producers meet in Kenya
  • Date: 26th June 2008
  • Summary: (AD1) BEAUCHAMP SUGAR ESTATE, MAURITIUS (RECENT - JUNE 20, 2008) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SUGAR HARVESTER AT WORK IN A FIELD, CUTTING SUGAR CANES
  • Embargoed: 11th July 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVAA1HJVOF4T65Q1K9WH2VGEPT7H
  • Story Text: The head of a continental union of producers and distributors has said that poor governance and not a lack of capital are to blame for Africa's electricity supply problems.

    "The problem has been the corporate governance of these institutions, a lot of the utility companies have been government-owned and in a lot of cases, in terms of managing, they have not been done to the best corporate governance standards and this is part of the reason why we have been short of power," said Eddie Njoroge, the head of the Union of Producers, Transporters and Distributors (UPDEA) addressing the group's 16th congress in Nairobi.
    Njoroge, who is also the managing director of the Kenya Electricity Generating Company, later asked African governments to stop appointing people who could be easily manipulated to the helm of state utilities, but to consider merit and performance.
    Other officials at the conference say that only 10 percent of the population of a majority of African nations have access to electricity, and only 4 percent in rural areas. They also noted that despite a population of 800 million, Africa accounts for only 3 percent of global electricity consumption.
    The International Energy Agency forecasts 584 million Africans -- up from 526 million -- will be without electricity by the year 2030.
    Africa's economic powerhouse South Africa is one of the countries facing serious supply challenges which have caused debilitating power outages.
    In Kenya, east Africa's biggest economy, demand for power and generation capacity are at par, also leading to load-shedding and supply cuts.

    "We have to consider solar energy, geothermal energy wind energy and hydro energy of course. These energies are expensive to implement but then the return of the investment is very fast," said Gonzalez Harnandez, the west African business director for Infra, a Spanish technology firm.
    Mauritius is already an African leader in this regard. The government aims to ramp up its use of renewable energy to 40 percent within a decade.
    A small island nation in the Indian Ocean far from many of markets, Mauritius has not been able to avoid the world's rising costs of fuel, transport, and energy.

    "Now, electricity is a bit too expensive, I don't know what they do it with, but it is going up because elsewhere it's a lot. It costs a lot to bring it to Mauritius. It costs a lot," Michael Cateaux said, a chef, at a restaurant in northern Mauritius.
    As one of the world's largest users of renewable energy already, the Indian Ocean island gets a major proportion of its energy from sugar cane.

    "We are at 18 percent, 18 to 20 percent of the electricity produced in this country comes from bagasse - bagasse being the fibrous part of the cane," Babu Rajpati, Executive Director of the Mauritius Sugar Authority, said.
    The Indian Ocean island is experimenting with the collection of sugar cane waste from the fields and different types of sugarcane.

    "We could end up with not far from 32 to 33 percent of demand from electricity will be coming let's say from cane biomass, traditional and non-traditional," Rajpati said.
    Officials say the extra use of sugar cane could displace about 300,000 tonnes of coal every year, saving nearly a million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
    Coal is currently used to produce about 40 percent of Mauritius' electricity, being burnt at the sugar mills outside of the harvest season.

    "Ok, we produce about 24 megawatts which represents just under 10 percent of what this island can consume in peak hours," Tony Rault, technical manager at the Deep River Beau Champ Milling Company said.
    The Indian Ocean nation is also looking to produce energy from burning waste, wind farms, sea water, sun, and tapping landfill gas emissions - though sugarcane remains the major renewable.
    Set to export about 15 million litres of ethanol last year, Mauritius is also looking at ways of adding ethanol to its fuel.
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