Namibia’s Power Utility (NamPower) will own and operate its own Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant by November 2021, its Managing Director, Simson Haulofu, has said. Haulofu made these remarks on Wednesday at the signature signing of the agreement for the construction Omburu 20 MW Solar PV project 12 kilometers outside the town Omaruru in the Erongo Region. “The construction of the power plant will be based on the lump-sum turn-key basis, where the joint venture of Hopsol and Tulive Private Equity will be appointed to design, procure, construct, commission, test and handover the Solar PV Plant to NamPower. The bid was awarded to the joint venture of Hopsol and Tulive Private Equity for a total amount of N$317 million excluding value-added tax,” he said. Haulofu added that on completion the Omburu project will have a net generation capacity of 20MW producing a total of 64 GWh annually and to give some indication of the size it will be equivalent to supplying an average of 16 000 Namibian homes annually. The project site will be located adjacent to the NamPower Omburu transmission station and it is estimated that the project will employ approximately 330 persons during the peak construction period. “With regard to local content and capacity building, it is estimated that 37% of the project capital expenditure will be spent on local Namibian content, where all semi-skilled and unskilled labour will be recruited from local community. NamPower is committed to support the Namibian government objectives as set out in the national planning policies and in particular, the National Integrated Resources Plan and the fifth National Development Plan,” Haulofu, adding that several transmission projects which were also approved as part of the Corporate Strategy and Business Plan will be built in the next five years in order to strengthen the Namibian grid and to dispatch the power generated from six new generation projects to NamPower customers. “In order to fulfil the country’s development goals, we need sufficient supply of electricity as the country continues to import a significant share of its electricity needs from SADC,” said Haulofu.