- Transmission line to be completed by July
- Electricity from Lesedi to be delivered by end of year
- Project to provide annual revenue of P100m
The developer of the gas-to-power project, Tlou Energy, hopes to have completed its transmission line that will connect to the national grid by July this year.
According to Tlou executives, the company – which has signed a Power Purchase Agreement with Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) for the supply of 10 megawatts through its Lesedi Power Project – has so far done 50 percent of the work on the power transmission line which stretches for approximately 100 km. The CEO and Managing Director of Tlou Energy, Tony Gilby told journalists at a recent media briefing that the transmission line is on course to be completed in the middle of the year.
“Subsequent to that, power stations need to be installed. We have the first PPA with BPC for a 10MW gas-to-power which we secured in the middle of the pandemic. We have all the environmental approvals secured and have a generation licence,” he said, noting that Tlou Energy has a consistent gas flow at the project. While Botswana – and indeed most of the parts of the world – still rely on coal for power generation, Gilby said gas provides a cleaner alternative for power generation with much less carbon emissions.
He told journalists that Tlou has a number of planned activities, primarily more drilling to deliver more gas to increase the amount of energy available for BPC and ultimately the country. “It will be a very nice position to be in to have excess power produced such that Botswana can be an exporter of electrical energy. We have drilled quite a number of wells over the years,” Gilby said, adding that the company’s gas reserves are significant.
While Tlou executives are generally confident that the company will deliver the project within time, Gilby also noted that they do not expect everything to go smoothly since the gas-to-power project is being carried out for the first time in Botswana. “We are progressing well,” he said. “We are on track for the first power delivery objective towards the end of the year. The power lines are on course for completion towards the middle of this year, and of course, there will still be some swings and roundabouts.”
In the last 10 years since the company started its project to provide clean power solutions, Tlou has invested over P500 million in various activities such as exploration. According to the company’s Finance Director, Colm Cloonan, once in full production, the Lesedi Project will generate P100 million in revenue annually.
