Tunisia’s energy minister Mongi Marzouk this week awarded 70MW of solar PV projects, bringing total renewables awards since outlining its initial renewables plans in 2016 to a respectable 844MW. While Tunisia’s renewables department has become somewhat of a specialist in signing ceremonies, transforming awards into electricity is still a work in progress – only 21MW of recently-awarded capacity has been brought online so far.
Before this, Tunisia’s renewables capacity consisted of about 242MW of wind and 63MW of hydro. Renewables contributed a meagre 3% to the country’s 20.1TWh of power generation in 2019, with the rest coming from gas-fired power plants (MEES, 13 March). Total installed capacity currently stands at around 6GW, with gas-fired plants accounting for 5.7GW. (CONTINUED - 895 WORDS)
