The Namibian government has made a budget allocation of N$400 million for the development of the 40-megawatt (MW) Otjikoto Biomass Power Station, on the outskirts of Tsumeb in Oshikoto Region.
Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises Iipumbu Shiimi said this is in line with energy supply shortages in the region.
“…there is a need to fast track the implementation of the approved domestic generation and transmission projects to increase local generation capacity and improve system stability in the medium term. In line with this, an allocation of N$200 million in 2024/25 Financial Year (FY) and N$200 million in 2025/26FY has been made to support NamPower in funding the development of the 40MW Otjikoto Biomass Power Station,” Shiimi said.
The allocation is contained in the N$100.1-billion national budget and Mid-Term Expenditure Framework tabled by Shiimi last week.
NamPower is thus advancing the development of its proposed 40MW Otjikoto Biomass Power Station. The project with a 25-year lifespan is estimated to cost N$1.9 billion. This comes as NamPower aims to add 150MW of power generation to the grid, to increase capacity.
NamPower is in the process of awarding the tender which will be undertaken as an Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) project and will be owned and operated by NamPower where the majority of the costs for the project will be leveraged from NamPower’s balance sheet.
According to NamPower, “the development of this project is a clear indication that NamPower is committed to supporting and achieving the Government objectives as set out in the National Planning Policies, the National Integrated Resource Plan (NIRP) and the fifth National Development Plan (NDP5).”
The project fact sheet indicates that Namibia faces the challenge that its open savannah, characterised by a mixture of trees, bushes and extensive grass plains, is increasingly changing into a dense bushy landscape by the intrusion and intensification of aggressive and undesirable wooden plant growth, more commonly known as encroacher bush.
Encroachment affects more than 26 million hectares of land in Namibia. The study indicates that the imbalance in the proportion of grassland to bush leads to a deteriorating biodiversity, a low carrying capacity of the farmland and a decrease in the recharge of Namibia’s aquifers.
“It is against this background that NamPower proposes to construct and operate the Otjikoto Biomass Power Station, which will generate electricity by the combustion of wood chips from encroacher bush harvested from the surrounding areas of the proposed project site.” NamPower sources of power generation are the 120MW coal-fired Van Eck power station in Windhoek, the 24MW diesel-powered Paratus power station at Walvis Bay, and the 22.5MW ANIXAS diesel-powered station at Walvis Bay as well as the 332MW hydro-electric Ruacana Power Station in the Kunene River at Ruacana.
