Where are the Feed-In Tariffs for the Grid Code announced in Budget 2010?

Its the end of January and still no prices for the power to be sold to the utility company (CEB) as per what was announced in the Budget 2010 in November 2009. On the 13th of this month there was only a workshop on Grid Code and Feed-in Tariffs for Small Independent Power Producers (SIPP). A few local newspapers relayed the information with no real coverage except for this article from L'Express. The only figures given were that of the price at which the IPP were selling to the CEB (10~20 cents higher than it would cost the CEB to produce itself), and the price from which power should be purchased from households ranging between Rs(6.00 ~ 20.00).

Mauritians are waiting for the practical offers, incentives, subsidies and for the day they can spin back their meters to generate a revenue from their household. Where are the deliverables from the Consultants of Ea Energy Analyses? Or are we going to adopt a wait and see approach?

Show Cases, Installation Sizing and Costs

On the 29 October 2009 the local TV station in its News Bulletin showcased two PV installations

1. In the CEB premises in Rose Hill, 4 arrays of PV panels of a total capacity of 2KW, installer was Infra Solar. The system was in operation since the last 7 months and produced monthly an average of 200KW/h (or 200 units per CEB billing) of electricity. The utility company stated it was an example of a residential PV system, but the grid-tie inverter was not shown and no price was given.
2. In a private company IFS at Ebenes, a system with a capacity of 22KW, and using 4 SunnyBoy grid-tie inverters, installer was Blychem. The system costs was Rs 7Million which brings the price per Watt to Rs 318.18.

Electricity generation through PV is expensive but not as much as people would think and provided the installers or importers are not making easy money with their high profit margins. There are many people who think that by going to China or India and picking up a cheap inverter they would be able to get into the business of renewable energy without realising that the inverter should be approved and certified by the local utility company.

What will make people invest in a PV system is the ability to generate a revenue by selling the surplus electricity at a guaranteed Feed-In Tariff over a number of years. The amount of electricity generated should offset the personal consumption. Taking the example of an household with a monthly consumtpion of 300 units in other words 300 KW/h, the PV panels should be sized at least 5KW which will produce 500KW/h monthly and remaining capacity of 200KW/h will be paid back by the utility company. The monthly paid back should be sufficient for reimbursing any loan taken for the purchase of the system