OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 12.30pm.
THE Namibian government on Monday said that the country is going to start facing crippling electricity shortages from next year as its electricity supplies start to dwindle.
Speaking at Africa Downstream ’98 conference in Cape Town, Namibian mines and energy ministry deputy director of energy Markus von Jeney said that “it is realised that already very early in the millennium shortages will occur in the normal supply pattern”.
He said that state-owned NamPower has already started to address the inevitable shortages, and has set in motion plans to build a 400kV line that will link up with South Africa’s national grid.
Despite this, new sources of power will still be required in the future, Von Jeney said. He highlighted two possibilities Namibia is looking into as solar and wind power.
Von Jeney said that Namibia has some 3300 hours of sunshine a year — making solar power attractive. There are currently over 30000 windmills in use in the country, and the government is investigating establishing wind farms to boost power supplies on the national grid, he said.