ESWATINI’S E0.95BN ENERGY IMPORTS IN THREE MONTHS

MBABANE – The country continues to import energy products in very large quantities.

Figures for energy products, especially fuel and electricity, for the period September to November 2020, still do make for riveting reading. Calculations done by this publication based on the monthly updates from the Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) showed that the country imported energy products worth E955.1 million during the period under review. 

This is despite that the imports of energy products decreased by 6.6 per cent month-on-month to E303.3million last month

In October this year, imports of energy products had increased by 5.8 per cent to total E324.8 million.

 Figures for fuel products and electrical energy for September 2020 had also suggested that these goods remained the country’s leading import.  They were recorded at E327 million.

unwelcome

The unwelcome figures came at a time when Eswatini electricity imports from neighbouring South Africa and Mozambique grew by approximately 9.8 per cent to record 1.043.8 GWh in 2019/20, compared to 950.6 GWh in 2018/19. This is as per the 2020 Economic Review Report covering the period ending March 31 this year.

Despite these developments, the outlook for the country’s energy sector is said to be broadly positive in light of the developments and planned investments that have been reported by the Eswatini Energy Regulatory Authority (ESERA) regarding increasing local generation for renewable energy. A majority of these developments greatly benefitted from the implementation of the Energy Master Plan tabled by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy in 2018. In the past year, ESERA adopted the Eswatini Individual Power Producers Policy that seeks to provide an energy toolkit that will enable procurement of new generation capacity following a consistent competitive tendering process. The procurement process for the development of the 40MW Solar PV plant was initialised in July 2019. ESERA has also started the procurement process for the 40MW solar energy, it intends on starting the process of procuring additional power from biomass.

Furthermore, the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) continues to push for the implementation of the Maguga hydro expansion project earmarked to contribute an extra 10 Megawatts (MW) to the grid. This project worth approximately E75 million involves the addition of generating equipment on the existing plant and constructing a new one in adjacent areas. Other projects in the pipeline include the Lavumisa Solar PV 10MW Power Station worth about E200 million and the Lubhuku coal thermal power station remains in the electricity company’s medium to long-term plans. Successful implementation of all these prospective projects would ensure that the production capacity of the country improves, thus reducing the dependency on imports from South Africa.

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