'Investigating the appropriate Renewable Energy Technologies in the Mauritian context'

Abstract: With limited indigenous conventional energy resources, Mauritius imports over 80% of its energy supply from foreign countries, mostly from the Middle East. Developing independent renewable energy resources is thus of priority concern for the Mauritian government. A tropical island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, Mauritius has enormous potential to develop various renewable energies, such as solar energy, biomass energy, wind power, geothermal energy, hydropower, etc. However, owing to the importance of conventional fossil energy in generating remarkably cheap electricity, renewable energy has not yet fully developed in Mauritius, resulting from a lack of market competition. So, in order to reduce the external dependency of fuel, and also to cut down the expenses involved in the imported fuels, the Mauritius Government introduced attractive policies and invited investors of the homeland and abroad to invest in renewable energy technologies. Consequently, numerous promotional and subsidy programs have recently been proclaimed by the Mauritian government, focused on the development of various renewable energies. Thus, the Government of Mauritius has a long-term vision of transforming Mauritius into a sustainable Island. One important element towards the achievement of this vision is to increase the country’s renewable energy usage and thereby reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Democratisation of energy production is determined to be the way forward. A step in this direction is to transfer citizens the ability and motivation to produce electricity via small-scale distributed generation (SSDG), i.e. wind, photovoltaic, Hydropower. As a stepping stone the Government and the Central Electricity Board, with the help of the UNDP, established a grid code in May 2009 which encompasses tariffs and incentive schemes that have in many countries proved essential in order to achieve any substantial development in renewable electricity production based on SSDG.   In line with the government’s vision on renewable energy, the University of Mauritius is working as a partner with DIREKT team to promote renewable energy infrastructure locally. The DIREKT (Small Developing Island Renewable Energy Knowledge and Technology Transfer Network) is a teamwork scheme that involves the participation and collaboration of various universities from Germany, Fiji, Mauritius, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago.  The aim of the DIREKT project is to reinforce the science and technology competency in the domain of renewable energy through technology transfer, information exchange and networking, targeting ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) Small Island developing states. This study was therefore initiated to investigate the main renewable energy technologies that stakeholders, institutions as well as businesses and organizations would like to invest in Mauritius based in the attracting incentive schemes provided by the Government.   From the study it was found that the majority of the Organizations, Institutions, Businesses and stakeholders are ready to accept and invest in the solar photovoltaic technology. Moreover, the economic evaluation for the implementation of the photovoltaic technology revealed that within a period of 4.3 years (payback period), the total capital invested can be recovered and after that, the capital generated from the excess electricity produced will contribute to the profit of the organization, Business or Institution.