THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS RELY ON RENEWABLE ENERGIES
The government of the Cape Verde Islands has set the goal of generating approx. 25% of the required electricity with sun and wind energy by the end of 2011. By 2020, it intends to even raise this amount to 50% of the electrical energy. An initial investment of approx. 100 million euros was pledged at the start of 2010. The financing comes from Europe (loans from Portugal), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank, as well as the Cape Verde Government’s own resources.
The first steps towards the realisation of these goals were already taken in 2010 with the construction of two large solar parks. A solar electricity park on the Island of Santiago is Africa’s largest photovoltaic park up to now with a surface of 13 hectares and a capacity of 5 MW. A solar park on the Island of Sal has a surface of 9.75 hectares and a capacity of 2.5 MW. The developer was the Portuguese Martifer company.
The two photovoltaic parks now jointly produce approx. 4% of the overall electricity required by the archipelago and have consumed the total amount of approx. 19 million euros.
Considerable investments have also been made in wind energy. The completion of four wind parks is planned by the end of 2011 with an investment of 65 million euros: The wind-energy capacity on the Island of Sal will be 8 MW, the Island of Santiago will have 10 MW, the Island of Boavista will have 4 MW and the Island of Sao Vicente will have 6 MW. The contract has been awarded to the Danish wind-turbine manufacturer Vestas and the Cape Verde Caboeólica company, which is partially owned by the state.
The current annual overall requirement for electricity on all of the island is approx. 400,000 MWh. The four wind parks are intended to cover approx. 24% of the current electricity needs of the Cape Verde Islands by the end of 2011. Together with the 4% from solar energy, the combination of solar and wind energy would then cover a total of approx. 28% of the entire electricity requirement. For 2020, the overall electricity requirement is estimated to be more than twice as much, approx. 850,000 MWh.