Mining company Diamond Trading Company Botswana (DTC Botswana) has issued a tender to seek developers for the construction of a 600 kW ground-mounted PV plant at its mining site in Gaborone, in the Naledi river valley of the Kalahari Desert.
The company, a 50/50 joint venture between the country's government and UK-based diamond company De Beers, said the Gaborone mine had a maximum design capacity of 3.5 MW and an actual maximum demand of about 1 MW.
“The 600 kW plant will be an upgrade of a 350 kW plant that is under construction [and] expected to be commissioned by the end of April 2021,” the company stated in the tender document. “Once upgraded, the solar PV plant will have a total capacity of 950 kW.”
Interested developers will have time until April 19 to submit their offers.
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According to the latest statistics from the International Renewable Energy Agency, Botswana had only 3 MW of installed PV power at the end of 2019. The country is seeking to deploy rooftop PV through a net-metering scheme, and large scale projects via several tenders. Furthermore, Giyani Metals Corp, a Canada-based company owning the K.Hill manganese project in southern Botswana, recently concluded the feasibility study for the construction of a solar park at the mining site.
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