RENEWABLE ENERGY ON THE RISE IN NAMIBIA N
amibia imports around 60 percent of its electricity from neighbouring countries, but has great potential to produce renewable energy. This is why the team from the Promoting Renewable Energies in Namibia project (PREN) are working tirelessly to create awareness around renewable energy.
Alongside a team of his students, Rodney Seibeb from PREN took to the Namibian desert in search of lessons from nature. “Renewable energy,” says Rodney, “is one of the forms of energy Namibia has been exploring. This so-called ‘clean energy’ has been promoted around the world for years. Finally, Namibia is catching up.” Talking about some of the myths around renewable energy, he says: “Since it is modern energy, most people think it is a very expensive way of electrifying your house, but over the past years the cost of these panels and components or the solar systems have really gone down.”
WITH PREN
He adds that with the work happening in the industry today, that myth will eventually be proven inaccurate. One of Seibeb’s students, Peter Hafiku agrees: “I think saving electricity and water may look basic, but they can actually save you a lot of money and also, through the process, energy. Yes, there are things like leaking taps – as soon as you find a leaking tap in your house, you must fix it. Save electricity by switching off the main switch, because most electrical appliances use energy when they are plugged in, even if you are not using any of them.”
The PREN project is a three-year project that is being implemented by the Hanns Seidel Foundation and the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN). It started in 2017 with the main aim of promoting the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency in Namibia. “We have the promotion of renewable energies at rural schools. We have identified six rural schools that need to be electrified and we have so far electrified four of those. We’ve given training to the management of the schools and handed over the systems to them to ensure sustainability of the systems,” Seibeb says of the grassroots implementations.
FIND THE HANNS SEIDEL FOUNDATION WEBSITE ON WWW.NAMIBIA.HSS.DE AND THE DESERT RESEARCH FOUNDATION OF NAMIBIA WEBSITE ON WWW.DRFN.ORG.NA
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