Namibian Finance Minister, Calle Schlettwein, promoted the development of renewable energy sources as a way forward for the country’s challenged energy sector during a speech last Wednesday at the National Energy conference in Windhoek, ESI Africa reported.

Schlettwein said the Kudu gas-to-power project should be forgotten as it is expensive compared to renewable energy projects, which now smartly compete with conventional power sources from a cost point of view.

The 885MW Kudu power plant project, to be located Oranjemund, is projected to provide Namibia with 400MW of power and between 100-300MW of surplus power will be exported to South Africa and Zambia.

Schlettwein also said he was pleased to see that renewables are evolving and rapidly becoming more affordable.

The country is in the transformation process of Electricity Control Board (ECB) which is set to become an energy regulator through the Namibia Energy Regulatory Authority (NERA) Bill. This will see the board oversee electricity, downstream gas and petroleum come 2017.

According to the CEO of the ECB, Foibe Namene, the transformation will also realise 150MW of renewable source of electricity into the national grid and this is expected to come online by 2017, according to AllAfrica.com.