Will government be able to fulfill its commitment to phase-out coal and produce 60% of the country’s energy needs from green sources by 2030? We put the question to Bashir Jahangeer, managing director of Kabelek Engineering, who has over 30 years of international professional experience as a commissioning engineer in the energy sector.
“The key to having more electric vehicles on the road is not through more duty-free. There can only be more electric vehicles if there are more charging stations. The drivers of electric vehicles whether they are buses or cars must be able to travel from Mahebourg to go up north to Triolet knowing that they can stop somewhere on the way back to recharge batteries. The problem today is not the capacity to import and even less the capacity to buy. The problem is whether we can find the space and resources to build Electric Vehicles Charging Stations and install the cables that will feed them without disrupting activities” he told us.
For the time being, Mauritius has only three electric vehicles charging stations operated by private companies in Goodlands, Mapou and Moka. To create demand for electric vehicles, government has opted for duty-free policy on these vehicles in the 2021/2022 budget speech without first addressing the need for charging infrastructure.
Bashir Jahangeer believes that the set of incentives may create other issues and instead of enabling Mauritius to meet its 2030 objective faster, this may become burdensome in the medium term for the stakeholders including existing charging stations and the CEB. “There are a few questions that policy-makers must ask themselves before going down the lane of transportation electrification. There is a whole policy involving production, distribution and storage management needs that must be assessed and designed to avoid power outage. Switching to green also means consuming more energy. This means producing and storing more power. Increasing storage capacity tenfold will be expensive and by the time it is achieved, it may not be enough to meet the sudden and sustained increase in demand. Where is the Smart Grid that would have allowed us to store intermittent power produced by renewables and that has been promised to us since 2015?” he asked.
In short, the duty-free incentive will create demand that will equal to a rapid electrification of transportation that may in turn catch the Central Electricity Board off guard.
Advanced countries are currently struggling to respond to new consumer trends in energy. In the United States, in Texas, the State’s power system vulnerability is becoming increasingly apparent as climate change contributes to weather extremes that are forcing people to consume more energy. During last winter, many electric bus fleets were rendered inoperative by a statewide power outage in Austin. Experts believe that the city’s problem will be magnified by 2022 as officials plan to purchase electric-powered buses exclusively this year. Austin’s transit agency has budgeted $650 million over 20 years for electric buses and a charging facility for 187 such vehicles.
In Mauritius, government will purchase 25 electric buses for the National Transport Corporation and increase the subsidy to encourage the purchase of electric buses from Rs. 1 million to Rs 1.2 million for 9-meter buses and Rs 1.3 million to Rs 1.5 million for buses above 9-meters. Operators acquiring electric buses will be eligible to lease under the Transformation Fund.
An increase in demand may in turn cause strain on the power grid, especially during summer. To meet the coal phase-out policy by 2030 as promised in the 2021/2022 budget and meet the rising demands of green transportation, the central government must improve renewable energy production. This is the reason why the CEB will be spending Rs 2.4 billion in a 40 MW windfarm and set up a solar farm of 10 MW at Tamarind Falls, Henrietta.
According to Bashir Jahangeer, the only renewable production zone that Mauritius can boast about for now is found at Henrietta. Henrietta where Akua Energy and Medine have combined forces to establish a 17 MW solar project. Plaine-Sophie where a 30 MW windfarm project was planned has been frozen following a complaint on forgery of banking documents. “This must start afresh if policy-makers want to boost renewable power production anytime soon”.
However, the former MP of Constituency No. 13 warns that the success of the coal phase-out policy will ultimately depend on pricing. He reminds us that the progress of sustainable energy also means affordable prices. “We should keep in mind that the only reason that the country consumes so much coal is because it is cheap”.
In 2019, out of the overall generation of energy by CEB, 35% was produced from coal and 44.5% from fossil fuel.
The 2030 coal phase out objective is ambitious. Bashir Jahangeer foresees a series of additional problems arising around price especially: “This goal, as bold as it is, can be achieved if government is able to create demand, meet demand and increase supply, all in a truly short span of time. This requires a lot of planning and massive investment. A renegotiation of the price rates offered to Independent Power Producers is a must. There needs to be a uniformed pricing. New entrants should not feel discriminated”.
