The Minister of Energy and Public Utilities, Mr Georges Pierre Lesjongard, inaugurated, yesterday at Arsenal, a solar farm which has been set up by the GreenYellow Indian Ocean Green, a Mauritian subsidiary of the French company GreenYellow, following an agreement signed between the latter and the Central Electricity Board (CEB) for the construction of solar photovoltaic power plants in Mauritius.
The Officer-in-Charge of the CEB, Mr Rajden Chowdharry; the President of GreenYellow, Mr Otmane Hajji; and other personalities were also present at the inauguration ceremony.
In his address, Minister Lesjongard highlighted that the solar farm will be on the CEB network by the end of this month, with an export capacity of 10 megawatts (MW). He pointed out that, for the current project, a bidding exercise was launched in June 2021 for a 10 MW solar farm and that the contract was awarded to GreenYellow for an electricity sales price to the CEB of Rs 2.74 per kWh.
The Minister informed that, since operating in the Indian Ocean around 15 years ago, GreenYellow has become an important partner for the CEB as evidenced by the Arsenal solar farm which is its second project on the island, after the one at Solitude with a capacity of 16 MW. He underlined that these projects are an encouraging step in Government’s goal of reaching 60% of renewable energy in the country’s energy mix by 2030.
Furthermore, he stated that solar farms with a similar capacity of 10 MW have currently reached the construction or commissioning stage. There is thus a strong enthusiasm among citizens and local economic operators for the use of clean energies as some 70 companies plan to contribute up to 200 MW under the Carbon Neutral Industrial Sector Renewable Energy Scheme while procedures for around 20 projects with a total capacity of 78 MW are currently being finalised.
In addition, Minister Lesjongard stressed that the use of green energies is even more relevant for islands such as Mauritius, which, according to the World Risk Report, is ranked at the 106th place among the countries most exposed to natural disasters.
As for CEB’s Officer-in-Charge, he emphasised that this project marks a major milestone in the history of renewable energy in our country and symbolises the collective commitment to a sustainable energy transition. To date, approximately 127 MW of solar energy has already been integrated into the national grid and a significant increase in this capacity is anticipated in the coming years, he added.
For his part, GreenYellow’s President underscored that the project was completed in a record time of eight months and spans over some 12 hectares of land. He moreover indicated that in the future, the project will be able to produce some 22,5 GWh yearly, thus injecting clean energy in the country’s electricity mix.
