MAURITIUS  

Located off the east coast of Africa in the southwest of the Indian Ocean, Mauritius is a gorgeous, sunny island with huge potential for solar energy. 

Although the country does not need to make significant improvements to its electrification rates, with an impressive 99.7% of the population having access to electricity as of statistics from 2020, there is room for improvement regarding how much of its supply comes from renewables (only 23.9%.). 

As such, the Mauritian government plans to have renewable energy account for 60% of the country’s electricity by 2030 and has its sights set on reducing national greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by the same year.   

To reach these goals, Mauritius has exempted PV projects from VAT and offers net-metering provisions to residential customers implementing systems that do not exceed 5kW in capacity. Plus, there is a green energy scheme for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), offering 2,000 2kWp systems installed free of charge. 

A series of large-scale PV projects are also helping Mauritius ramp up its solar capacity and boost its energy supply…  

PLANNED PROJECTS 

In March 2022, GreenYellow Indian Ocean, a subsidiary of the French PV company GreenYellow, signed an agreement with the Central Electricity Board (CEB) committing it to the construction of a 13.86MW PV plant in Arsenal, a town in the north of Mauritius. The plant is set for delivery in 2023.  

Later in 2022, another big PV project entered discussions: a 10MW farm at Petite-Retraite. This installation proposes to comprise a PV generator with 52 inverter units, as part of the CEB’s considerations with Green Rock Ltd.  

Just before the end of 2022, in December, Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) also expressed interest in a 2MW floating solar plant at Tamarind Falls Reservoir. In March 2023, the minister of energy and public utilities in Mauritius announced this plant would be installed — and that it would contribute 30MW to the CEB. 

SegenSolar is keen to foster the development of additional small and large-scale PV installations across Mauritius. If you are a homeowner, you can get in touch for more details about our work. If you are an installer, you can explore our range on the portal — just log in or sign up for a free account.