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Minister of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Prince Lonkhokhela, has hailed the Eswatini Regulatory Authority (ESERA) for advancing the country’s electricity generation agenda.
The minister informed Members of Parliament during debate of the first quarter performance report for the 2025/2026 financial year that ESERA has made progress with the procurement of new power generation projects for solar and biomass.
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“Significant progress has been made by all the bidders towards financial close; they have all appointed lenders and are finalising contracts with their Engineering and Procurement contractors (EPC).
There were unplanned delays relating to the acquisition of land parcels; however, these have been resolved, and no further delays are envisaged,” the Prince said.
The minister disclosed that he took it upon himself to meet all the senior executives of the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to accelerate the implementation of these projects as quickly as possible.
“It is pleasing to mention the progress of the local power projects under development. The Ubombo Sugar Limited has secured funds to increase the biomass local generation capacity to 40 Megawatts (MW), and the project is at the stage of finalisation of designs.
Funding was obtained from Standard Bank. Similarly, the Eswatini Royal Sugar Corporation has been awarded an increased allocation to produce 50 MW baseload power from the original of 27 MW,” he said.
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The minister announced that they envisage launching the first of the Independent Power Producer solar projects at Nouma (20MW) in the next few weeks.
“This follows the successful negotiations and securing of the land parcels, completion of designs, and other pertinent project requirements.
We thank His Majesty, King Mswati III, for the allocation of the land for the project. Similarly, we will proceed with Ndzevane to launch a 15 MW project, which will be followed by the launch of the projects at Nsoko (10MW), at Ngwenya (20 MW), and Bhalekane (20MW) in succession and as they reach financial close,” he added.
