Botswana secured $100 million to build its first large-scale solar plant that will sell power to a regional market, as investors bet that rising electricity demand will offer lucrative returns on surplus power.
The 100-megawatt Tati Solar Project is set to begin commercial operations next year, after securing financial arrangements with the help of South Africa’s FirstRand Ltd and Rand Merchant bank.
Some 600 million people across Africa lack electricity, according to the International Energy Agency, and about half of southern Africa’s population doesn’t have access.
The Tati plant will sell power to the Southern Africa Power Pool, which allows utilities and independent producers to sell power across borders, Bloomberg reported: Investors are “taking a view that there is sufficient demand” for the scale of capital infrastructure involved in the project, an executive said.