Open letter to Joël de Rosnay, ti-MID concerns

Having come across your interview on the newspapers regarding the concerns you expressed on the “ti-MID” advances of the MID project, allow me to suggest a method for the financing of residential PV systems. In Mauritius every year there are some around 3,800 new cars which are purchased, of which part are not Customs Duty exempted, requiring the new owners to pay Rs 500,000 or more depending on the model of the cars just in duty. These owners could be granted an exemption on duty for the installation of a PV system on the roof top of their houses with minimum peak capacity production of 5Kw. The government does not have to find additional sources of finance as incentives scheme for the project.

For example someone buying a C180 Mercedes costing Rs 2.2 million would be paying at least Rs 800,000 in Customs Duty, amount which the latter could have invested into a residential PV system which in turn would be generating monthly revenue.

The incentives for the individual are:

• doing a green action and saving the environment,

• Generating monthly additional revenue by selling the electricity to the grid.

The incentives for the Government are:

• not having to find sources of funding for financing the MID project where which the individual already has the potential for funding the project,

• Lessening the dependence on burning of fossil fuels for producing electricity and foreign currency spent for the import of the fuel re-allocated to paying the SIPP electricity production.

• Achieving the goal of 35% of electricity from renewable sources with the help of the Mauritian citizens’ participation.