Sudan preps to launch FIT scheme for solar and renewables

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Sudan has one of the lowest levels of solar development in Africa, although it has one of the best levels of solar radiation in the whole continent.

The Sudanese government has tried to implement several initiatives to increase the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix over the past year, but so far results seem to be quite limited.

However, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is supporting the Sudanese government's efforts to promote renewables, is now seeking consultants with experience in the development of national FIT programs to help the local government and the country’s Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) find the most suitable legal and regulatory framework for a future incentive scheme. The UNPD said that previous studies concerning FIT schemes prepared by ERA should be revised and may be included as a part of the future scheme.

According to the UNDP, Sudan’s Ministry of Water Resources, Irrigation, and Electricity (MWRIE) has recently implemented measures to separate the process of power generation, transmission and distribution, and has made the first steps to privatize the energy sector.

Furthermore, the ministry has conducted assessments of the country's wind and solar power potential. At the same time, the ERA has started a separate study on the cost of electricity and the tariff structure for Sudan's power system including the feed-in tariff. According to UNPD, a draft of this study has already been released.

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The future FIT scheme is expected to support both grid-connected and off-grid renewable energy power generators.

The MWRIE and the UNDP are currently implementing a solar water pumps project for irrigation in Sudan's Northern State. This project started in January 2017 with a pilot phase of installing 28 solar pumps covering the 7 localities of the region’s focusing agricultural areas that are connected to Sudan’s power system.

The Sudanese government aims to install 500 MW of solar and 300 MW of wind by 2020.

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