In order to serve the growing renewable energy market, Namibia depends 100 % on imports of renewable energy technologies.

• Import duties are not levied on renewable energy technologies, except solar thermal energy for households.
• Profits of foreign subsidiaries in Namibia can be transferred without limitation to the parent company. This offers interesting business opportunities for European renewable energy companies despite the relatively small size of the market. This is true, in particular, in the embedded generation segment and for companies that:
• Offer operator models, including financing: e. g. Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT), leasing concepts, power purchase agreements;
• Manufacture renewable energy components of various technologies, including electricity storage; and
• Provide solutions that optimise own consumption and perform load management

The number of local, established renewable energy companies in Namibia is low. Most companies focus on project development, engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) activities and installation of photovoltaic and solar thermal solutions.

The established, local companies, some of which have been active in the field of renewable energies for more than 10 years, generally have sound know-how and technical understanding. As there is no formal training in the field of renewable energies in Namibia, employees are individually trained by the companies. Thus, the quality and the level of education of local companies and specialists can vary considerably.

Expansion in mining and other economic activities will lead to increase in electricity demand and it will as well require more electricity generation within the country.

The basic policy framework and regulations for private-sector participation in the electricity market have been established. Due to current regulations and the modified single-buyer model, the following opportunities have emerged for private sector involvement in the Namibian energy market:

• Debt financing and equity participation in upstream and downstream operations
• Power generation as Independent Power Producers (IPP’s)
• Financing of transmission lines
• Engineering, procurement and construction as well as drilling and production

Rising costs for grid power mean that decentralised renewable energy systems for self-consumption can be implemented economically and with relatively short payback periods.

Hence the market segment for self-consumption in industry, commerce and agriculture is developing dynamically. A conservative estimate based on industrial large-scale consumers in Namibia assumes at least 5,000 potential customers or plants in this market segment.

The capacities of the plants vary depending on the consumer. For agricultural enterprises and tourism facilities, the plant sizes range between 20 and 250 kWp. Commercial consumers tend to have a demand for plants of 500 to 1,000 kWp. For large-scale consumers, the project size can also reach single-digit MW values.

One trend in the area of self-consumption plants is the orientation towards operator models in which the electricity consumer concludes a purchase agreement with the project developer. This means that the project developer must have access to financing in order to realise the project.

The expansion plans of the Namibian government essentially represent the theoretical market size of the segment. According to the country’s National Integrated Resource Plan (NIRP), 19 power purchase agreements have already been concluded with IPPs, leaving around 110 MW photovoltaics, 100 MW wind power and 40 MW biomass that must be awarded in further REFIT and other open tender bidding rounds. Due to the relatively high technology costs, it is questionable whether the planned 250 MW CSP will be realised.