Tunisia pushes for renewable energy

Tunisia pushes for renewable energy

Tunisia aims to draw a third of its power supply from renewables by 2030. The Energy and Mines Minister Mongi Marzouk has declared that renewable power generation capacity, now covering only 4 percent of the country’s total supply, will be expanded from the current 148 megawatts to 16 gigawatts by 2030.

The renewable energy program will require about $7 billion. Tunisia will be attempting to draw investment from Europe to achieve the milestones set for the country. Current plans include feed-in-tariffs for 10 megawatts of solar for plants and 30 megawatts of wind power through auctions for plants above those generation capacities.

Investment needed in the 2016-2020 timeframe amounts to $1.6 billion, of which $685 million solar (222 MW), $680 million wind (1.45 GW), $231 million biomass (162 MW). In a recent move, the German development bank KfW Group is offering Tunisia a 112 million euro ($124 million) loan and non-returnable aid to finance clean energy.