IRENA-Swaziland Energy Planning Capacity-Building Programme: Consultation Workshop
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Kingdom of Swaziland’s [1] government held a consultation workshop to present and discuss the draft national energy master plan 2034 document with a group of key energy sector stakeholders.
The national consultation workshop meeting was attended by about 50 participants, representing a wide range of stakeholders. The Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy (MNRE) opened the meeting. She emphasized the central importance of the master plan document for national energy planning.
IRENA presented on the context of the stakeholder meeting and the process and methodology for development of the master plan. The national working team presented the three energy demand scenarios and seven energy supply scenarios modelled in the master plan, and the related draft results. Three of the seven scenarios include coal as part of the future power generation mix, while one scenario charts a 100% renewable energy vision for the national power sector by 2034, with reduced import dependency. The majority of stakeholders indicated strong concern about coal based generation and urged for significant deployment of solar PV and wind based options.
The consultation workshop was part of the IRENA-Swaziland capacity building programme on strategic long-term energy planning. The draft national energy master plan 2034 document was developed by the national working team, that had previously undergone the MESSAGE software distance-learning in June 2016 (provided at the courtesy of the International Atomic Energy Agency), two 2-week national training courses in July 2016 and October 2016 as well as two working team retreats for master plan development. IRENA provided technical support to the national working team as per need.
As next step, the national working team will address the comments from stakeholders on the draft master plan and will work towards finalization of the master plan document.
See the IRENA-Swaziland Capacity-Building Programme.
[1] The Kingdom of Swaziland, now known as the Kingdom of Eswatini, officially changed its name on 19 April 2018.