Botswana battery storage plan puts 100MWh beside the Mmadinare solar cluster

Botswana Power Corporation has published plans for a 25MW battery with 100MWh of storage beside the Mmadinare solar cluster, with the World Bank funding its construction, as Botswana presents a climate plan at COP31 in Antalya that ranks energy generation as its largest opportunity for carbon market activity.

Botswana Power Corporation has published a revised environmental and social management plan, dated 6 November, for a battery storage system of 25MW and 100MWh in 20 battery containers and five power conversion units, to be built on 2 hectares of a 40-hectare plot 8km south-east of Mmadinare in the Bobirwa District, beside the 100MW Mmadinare Solar PV Cluster. The plan, submitted to the Department of Environmental Protection in Selebi Phikwe, says the World Bank will fund the initial construction, pencilled in for 2027 over 9 to 12 months, and that the battery is designed to firm the output of the adjoining solar cluster and to provide peak-shaving and frequency services for the region.

More than 243,288MWh had flowed into the grid from the solar cluster by its official launch on 31 August, with availability and reliability above 99% since operations began, according to BPC’s Chief Executive, David Kgoboko. Scatec, the Norwegian IPP that built and owns the plant, sells its power to BPC under a 25-year power purchase agreement. Solar plants at Bobonong, Phakalane, Shakawe and Mmadinare produced about 82,520MWh in the first quarter of 2026, or 9.1% of domestic generation against 3.2% a year earlier, by Statistics Botswana’s figures reported in Mmegi, while imports fell 29.8% on the previous quarter and the Morupule A and B coal plants supplied 90.8% of local generation.

Under its revised Integrated Resource Plan the government wants renewables to supply 50% of the generation mix by 2030, up from about 8%, and in April President Duma Boko broke ground at Maun on a 500MW solar plant with a 500MWh battery, which BPC is executing with Okavango Solar under a government-to-government partnership with Oman and a 30-year power purchase agreement. The World Bank’s Renewable Energy Support and Access Accelerator project, approved in July 2024 with an $88 million loan and $34 million in Green Climate Fund finance, includes 50MW of utility-scale battery storage.

Botswana’s third nationally determined contribution, which its delegation is presenting at COP31 in Antalya, rates energy generation as having the “largest” potential for carbon market activities and nature-based removals a “significant” one, with bushfire management and refrigerant transitions at “moderate” and a “lower volume” expected from energy efficiency, according to Argus. Its draft carbon market framework, which Carbon Pulse reported the plan targets for the first quarter of 2027, would keep the cheaper mitigation for Botswana’s own target and offer the higher-cost activities abroad as internationally transferred mitigation outcomes under Article 6, and it names both Article 6.2 and the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism as suitable routes for energy generation.

Mitigation under the unconditional target will need $224 million between 2026 and 2035, the NDC says, and the conditional mitigation need for the same period is $1.5 billion. The second NDC, submitted in December 2024, had put the conditional need to 2030 at $2.7 billion, of which about $50 million has been secured, Argus reported. On removals, the NDC cautions against overselling the low-cost mitigation Botswana needs for its own unconditional target, and the government will seek $4.32 billion in climate finance at COP31, the state news agency BOPA reported.

Before commissioning, the battery will need grid-connection and regulatory approvals from the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority, the ESMP says, and amendments to BERA’s own Act that would recognise independent transmission providers and introduce electricity trading are due in Parliament’s November sitting, according to Mmegi’s report of remarks by BERA’s Chief Executive, Never Tshabang, at the National Business Conference in Francistown in October.

Fieldwork for the ESMP found no one living on the 40-hectare plot that the Ngwato Land Board allocated to BPC, so no resettlement plan is needed, and the battery compound will fence about 2 hectares, leaving the other 38 open for the livestock of neighbouring farmers and for the communities who collect non-timber forest products there.