Addressing a Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Power Sector Investors conference in Zambia, Dr Lawrence Musaba of the Southern African Power Pool said that according to the bodys calculations, the region had generation capacity of at least 102871MW.
Given the potential also of nuclear- power generation, reaching this capacity could cost as much as 83bn. However, without nuclear energy, which has huge cost implications due to specialised technology and skills requirements, and has implications for the disposal of uranium and nuclear waste, the costs could be reduced to 43bn to build the necessary capacity in the region, Musaba said.
The Sadc region was surviving on the 55000MW capacity generation that existed and therefore needed to substantially fund regional energy generation projects that could collectively increase the capacity by another 57000MW.
The conference discussed at least 10 electricity generation projects, mostly of the hydro variety, which would involve the extra cost of transmission corridor lines to transport power to neighbouring states .
Business Day
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