A Decade of Namibian Solar Revolving Fund: Performance, Problems, Reforms and Lessons Learnt

摘要

Namibia is among the countries with highest solar insolation. It has highly sparse population and is net importer of energy. These attributes make Namibia ideally suited for exploitation of solar energy. One key impediment to increased utilization of solar energy systems is their high first costs, which make them unaffordable to rural communities in developing countries. In order to promote off-grid rural electrification through the use of SHSs, in 1996 the MME launched a Home Power Programme by setting up a SRF. The fund lends money to users of solar energy systems at affordable conditions. Three different institutions have administered the SRF so far. NDC, a 100% government owned parastatal, administered it from1996-2001, Premier Electric, a 100% subsidiary of the national utility NamPower, from 2001-2004 and KI, a purely private company, from 2005. This paper describes the experiences from the SRF, its performance under different administrators, problems encountered, reforms introduced, their impact on the performance of the fund and lessons learnt during the past 10 years of its operations.