Tunisia’s grand plans to develop 1GW-plus of new renewables capacity by 2020 look doomed. The country has failed to bring online a single solar or wind project since it announced its ‘renewables action plan’ in November 2016.
The start-up of a 250MW gas turbine plant at Bouchemma in late-2016 took the country’s installed capacity to 5.31GW, implying a comfortable 36% capacity surplus versus that year’s peak demand of 3.40GW. But, with no further start-ups since, this surplus has shrunk dramatically. Demand has risen strongly to hit 4.2GW this summer, an uncomfortably-high 79% of the capacity figure (see chart). (CONTINUED - 1224 WORDS)
