Ariel Saramandi and Hishaam Ibrahim,
members of the MMM’s Commission Développement Durable
If you take a cursory glance at the government’s plans, you’d think our country was steadily embracing the green energy revolution. The government aims to generate 60% of the island’s power from renewable sources by 2030. As of 2021, renewable energy accounted for approximately 21% of the island’s electricity production; of this, just over half was produced by bagasse, a form of biomass. Solar power was the second largest source of renewable energy, accounting for 5.1%.
Numerous projects have been announced to boost those figures, and as encouraging as they sound, we’ve found major problems in the government’s plans to execute its green energy ambitions.
I: Biomass: a worthy renewable source, but an irresponsible, misguided “Framework”
Bagasse is a biomass: a renewable, plant- or animal-derived material that is used for fuel. The use of bagasse as a biomass to produce electricity in Mauritius began in the 1980s. At a time when sugar production reached an all-time high, the country saw an opportunity to convert what would have ordinarily been considered waste material into a valuable resource for producing electricity – an ingenious way to make the most out of our scarce resources. The 1980s were a time of growing economic possibilities; now, forty years later – in a world of impending global economic meltdown, climate-disruption fuelled disasters, and cost of living crises – Mauritius is also reckoning that one of the pillars of its economy, sugar, is shrinking. And it seems clear that we have lost more than just our sugar export quotas since 2009. We have also lost our flair for forward-thinking economic development policies.
Biomass was first evoked as a measure in the 2016-2017 budget, where the Minister of Finance stated that the government would facilitate the production of energy from biomass and ensure that small planters would ‘get their fair share of the revenue.’ The Minister of Finance addressed the importance of bagasse-as-biomass again in the budget of 2019-2020, announcing the creation of a ‘National Biomass Framework’; in the 2021-2022 budget (it seems that the budget functions as a yearly update of previously-announced measures, like a poorly-updated Excel sheet) he stated that bagasse would henceforth be remunerated at Rs 3.50 per kWh for all planters and producers.
Sugar conglomerates had stressed that the Framework’s contents should urgently be communicated to them. They own the three biggest coal-bagasse cogeneration plants in Mauritius: Omnicane’s La Baraque produces 90 MW; Terragen produces 71.20 MW, and Alteo Energy has a production capacity of about 36.70-41 MW.[1] These three plants are the biggest Independent Power Producers (IPP) on the island.
The Framework, published in June 2023, suggests that biomass will comprise 22.8% of energy production in Mauritius by 2030. All very well, if the measures to produce such growth weren’t so troubling – and infuriating.
In order to analyse the ludicrous government paper, one must first understand the consequences and potential dangers of biomass production – which, naturally, aren’t examined at all in the ‘Framework’.[2]
Biomass isn’t clean. Studies have shown that many forms of biomass produce higher carbon emissions than fossil fuels. A 2021 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (USA), for instance, measured the impact of using wood pellets sourced from forests to fuel power plants in America: they found that “the carbon emissions over the pellets’ lifecycle far exceed the average emissions of power generation in the U.S., even if carbon capture and storage was added to power plants.”[3] On top of this, biomass energy production isn’t sustainable if the crop used for biomass could otherwise be used for food production. It would also be more beneficial for the environment if the land on which the crop was grown remained wild: the soil wouldn’t be drained of nutrients and permeated with pesticides (fertilisers and pesticides are also contributors to global heating).
Wood chips will be used to an important degree for biomass energy production in Mauritius – more of that later – but the major biomass crop is sugarcane (representing a planned 15.9% of the electricity mix by 2030, compared to 6.9% of ‘woody biomass’). A 2019 study by Soil & More Impacts in Mauritius stated that sugarcane production accounted for 0.36kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of sugar produced and delivered to the capital. Reassuringly, they also found that bagasse burning had a “large positive impact” and “exceeds the negative climate impact of the entire cane sugar production process by 0.17kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of sugar from cradle to national harbour.”
Still, though, 75% of our arable land is engaged in sugarcane production, and sugar is a declining (though still firm) pillar of our economy. What’s clear is that although the use of bagasse in energy production seems to be sustainable now, cane can’t be grown solely to be burnt; bagasse must remain a renewable resource derived from sugar production and not cultivated to be exclusively used as a biofuel independent of sugar production. This means that bagasse as biofuel isn’t a solution to Mauritius’ renewable energy needs in the long run[4], and that, in addition, all the land taken up by uncultivated sugarcane should be converted immediately to either crop cultivation or planted with wild/endemic flora.
Which brings us to the first problem of the Framework. It details plans to rehabilitate agricultural land for cane production and replantation; ‘locking’ in previously abandoned sugarcane land, and turning sugarcane fields with low yield into land dedicated to the cultivation of plants-for-biomass (mainly eucalyptus trees). Mauritius has approximately 45,000 hectares of land under cane cultivation; the Framework considers the whole area as potential biofuel. The Framework believes that this approach is ‘vital for sustaining the sugar sector’, but it isn’t clear how ‘sustaining’ a declining industry will help the country as a whole – and burning sugarcane purely for the sake of biomass, as explained above, is harmful. There isn’t any mention of potential carbon capture technologies which could store the carbon dioxide released from burning biomass, either.
Worse still, the Framework suggests that our forests should be considered as biofuel. It would be a risible situation – only 4% of our native forests are left – if these measures weren’t so abominably serious. The document states that ‘state forest lands’ and ‘private forests’ are significant sources of biomass. A little over half of the total land covered by forests is under private ownership, and the majority of state forest land is ‘leased for hunting purposes’ in chassés. Quoting these extracts in full is worthwhile, to understand the government’s plans: ‘lease agreements for hunting purposes need to be reviewed […] The main constraint remains that 11,200 hectares (out of 12000) are already leased for hunting purposes; contracts are subject to renewal by the Ministry of Agro Industry and Food Security every seven years.’ The Framework states that ‘The Forestry Services confirmed that there should be no problem to integrate hunting activities and biomass production. Within hunting grounds, only 5% of the land is confined for grazing and the remaining may be exploited for biomass production […] Legally, all the trees present on these grounds belong to the State; there would be no need to change the law.’ These chassés could potentially be mutilated if not outright destroyed in the name of biomass production.[5] National Parks aren’t spared, either, with 2000 hectares to be considered for ‘bioenergy exploitation’ though the Framework does note that ‘investors must comply with stringent requirements’.
The only viable sources of biofuel, in the Framework, are treated afterwards: plant ‘waste’, such as the pruning of trees; the collection of dead trees; the use of contractually-removed invasive species as biomass; the potential of refuse-derived fuel, and the burning of industrial wood waste (such as damaged wooden pallets, wooden poles used in construction sites and so forth). The Framework says we can expect about 85 GWh/year of energy produced by 2030 – certainly not as significant as the government’s biomass plans for our forests and sugarcane land, amounting to 688 GWh/year.
II: Solar Power: a powerful move forward, if the CEB was in good health
An important aside before this section begins: none of the Central Electricity Board’s Annual Reports from 2016-2017 are available to download online. It has been taxing to find information on the development of government projects: reports are either missing, or are of unacceptable quality, or cannot be read due to formatting issues.
In 2022, Terragen – one of the biggest IPP’s cited above – entered into a dispute with the CEB, claiming that it was unable to produce electricity according to its contract with the state given the soaring prices of coal worldwide. Terragen is responsible for about 17% of the country’s energy production, and a good number of industry professionals were worried that Mauritius wouldn’t have enough power on the grid to supply the needs of the nation. They claimed, rightly so, that it was urgent for our country to boost its production of renewable energy in order to reduce its dependency on IPPs and fossil fuels. Renewable energy would also potentially enable the CEB to lower its energy prices for consumers.[6]
The Ministry of Energy and Public Utilities has placed great hopes in solar power, if their ‘Roadmap 2030’ document is to be believed. Hydro-electricity (56.4 MW), solar power (94.78 MW) and biomass (131.5 MW) are the three biggest renewable energy sources of the country, with hydro-power considered to be fully-tapped.
A myriad of projects have been and will be launched to boost solar energy infrastructure. Current solar infrastructure yielded 94.78 MW in 2020; this figure is expected to exceed 375 MW at an investment cost over USD 297.22 million. Solar energy is also expected to generate around 6000 jobs. Beyond tax schemes and other economic measures, the projects launched and operational so far have been small and their cumulative efforts are still not nearly enough to counter, say, another Terragen-like situation.[7] MUR 5 billion has been invested in Gas Insulated Substations throughout the island, which will help consolidate the CEB’s renewable energy infrastructure. It’s a crucial step forward in order to produce greater, more efficient amounts of renewable energy – as long as the projects that will yield energy actually take off. There is great hope in particular in CEB’s agreements with French energy producer Qair, which will see the construction of four solar farms across the country with integrated BESS and a total capacity of 60 MW by 2024.
One of the most important measures in our island’s energy transition is the outfitting of solar panels and equipment across residential homes, businesses and other infrastructure across the country. Citizen-produced electricity would democratise access to the electricity grid and has been in the works since 2010, with the launch of the Small Scale Distributed Generation (SSDG) project.[8] The government came up with an additional ‘SSDG Net-Metering Scheme’ in 2015, launched on a pilot basis for 5 MW. The Scheme, though laudable, has not expanded since then; the CEB’s Roadmap shows that only 5 MW was produced under the Scheme in 2022,[9] and there is no indication that the government seeks to increase this amount.
The Roadmap also provides forecasts for the government’s ‘Home Solar Project’: the amount of power generated by home solar projects is expected to be 4 MW in 2023, which should increase to 10 MW by 2030. The trouble is, we don’t have that much by way of additional statistics to put that power in perspective: we don’t know just how many households across the country are powered by solar energy and what could be done to heighten that energy transition across a maximum number of homes across the island.[10] What we do know is that 10,000 households were to be equipped with solar panels as per the government’s Home Solar Project, with USD 10 million granted to the island from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development for the purpose in 2018. The project would bring 10 MW of energy; only 2 MW of that energy was produced in 2022 as per the Roadmap, with no indication of how many houses out of the 10,000 benefited from the project so far. We also know that in the 2020-2021 budget the Minister of Finance announced a Rs 650 million investment in the installation of solar panels on rooftops of government buildings including hospitals and educational institutions, as well as provision of solar water heaters to some 2,000 households. The plan – though modified – was reiterated in the budget of this year. But we haven’t been given substantial updates yet.
III: The difficult road forward
Along with solar and biomass, IRENA – the International Renewable Energy Agency, a leading global intergovernmental agency for energy transformation – has marked wind energy as a source of high potential for the country. Mauritius has one operational windfarm at Plaine des Roches, with an energy capacity of 9.35 MW. The government in its 2021-2022 budget said it had launched a Request for Proposal to set up a 40 MW wind farm, and the CEB plans for an offshore windfarm of 20 MW by 2026 as per the Roadmap. We could have already been well on our way in boosting wind energy production, had the 29 MW wind project in Plaine Sophie been entrusted to a worthy promoter (the actual promoter, Suzlon, took on the project in 2011 before backing out in 2019).
Which brings us to an important point: in order to trust that the (viable!) plans for renewable energy will be carried out, we need to be able to trust the government and its institutions. Trust in their goodwill, their efficiency, their transparency. We’re incapable of doing so at the moment, given the shambolic state of energy governance in this country.
The CEB, with its four directors in seven years and major corruption scandal in the last three years, is an institution in peril. The MUR 7.8 billion worth of reserves in June 2020 have been furiously depleted, and the Board now has a deficit of MUR 4,1 billion. MUR 1.2 billion were reportedly invested in three CEB subsidiaries, which then closed; judicial issues led to further expenses of MUR 75 million. MUR 7.9 billion of funds were lent (as loans or by way of Shares and Equity Participation) to the Central Wastewater Management Authority and the Central Water Authority; over the last five years, the Authorities have not reimbursed the Ministry of the capital and interest they owe. The Central Electricity Board has a pension fund deficits of MUR 5,6 billion,[11]. Somehow, amidst all of this, the CEB still managed to transfer MUR 3 billion to the government’s ‘Consolidated Fund’.
It is difficult, knowing this information, to believe that Mauritius will be able to meet its renewable energy aims, in a climate that has become all too urgent, in a world where drastic, cutting-edge actions are required to ensure that our world is tolerable in the next ten years. And we won’t get this change unless the island’s public sector is revolutionised in the way that its employees and citizens deserve.
NOTES
[1] Omnicane has an exclusively coal-fired plant in St Aubin that produces an additional 32.50 MW for the grid.
[2] The Framework mentions that sugarcane cultivation will ‘control soil erosion and act as an important carbon sink’, which is nonsensical given the carbon emissions of sugarcane while planted and when burnt.
[3] https://www.nrdc.org/press-releases/new-study-debunks-carbon-neutrality-forest-biomass
[4] In 2021 there were 255818 tonnes of sugar produced in Mauritius. The Digest of Environment Statistics for 2021 reports that Mauritius produced 5,471,800 tons of greenhouses gas, of which 4,324,800 tons represented total carbon dioxide emissions.
[5] As per the Agricultural Digest of Statistics Mauritius for 2021, 45,939 hectares of Mauritian land are under sugarcane cultivation. 41,897 hectares were harvested.
[6] Tariffs have increased through December 2022 – February 2023.
[7] We think here, for instance, of the 8 MW farm in Henrietta which was launched in March 2023.
[8] The 2011 CEB Annual Report stated that the Small Scale Distributed Generation (SSDG) project had been implemented, ‘the first of its kind in Mauritius’, where ‘necessary incentives have been given to Small Independent Power Producers to produce, consume and sell any surplus electricity to the national grid. ‘The response from the public was beyond our expectations’, the Report said, a response that exceeded the allowable capacity set to 2 MW, which meant that a further 1 MW of energy production would be opened up to potential producers.
[9] The SSDG scheme allows CEB customers to generate electricity using solar photovoltaic panels for their own consumption. Any surplus energy generated is exported to the CEB grid and stored as units of kilowatt-hour (kWh) credit at no cost. The credit is used when the customer’s system is not generating enough electricity to meet their energy demands. The Medium Scale Distributed Generation Net Metering Scheme, developed in 2020 to cater for larger Renewable Energy projects, has a maximum capacity of 10 MW and is currently operating at 7 MW.
[10] As per the 2022 Housing Census, there are 280,300 wholly residential buildings, 411,700 housing units and 369,000 private households in Mauritius.
[11] Totalling a staggering MUR 40 billion.