Namibia’s First Merchant Solar Plant Enters Commercial Operation
The 19.3 MWp Gerus solar plant has entered commercial operation, becoming Namibia’s first purpose-built merchant solar project selling electricity into the Southern African Power Pool.
SOURCE SIGNAL
The 19.3 MWp Gerus solar photovoltaic plant in Namibia reached commercial operation on 18 December 2025.
Developed by Solarcentury Africa with BB Energy, the project represents an important change in how privately developed renewable electricity can participate in Namibia and the wider regional electricity market.
Gerus is Namibia’s first purpose-built merchant solar plant selling electricity into the Southern African Power Pool, allowing electricity generated in Namibia to be traded through the regional power market rather than being developed solely against a traditional long-term domestic utility offtake arrangement.
The milestone moves Gerus beyond development and construction into an operating renewable-energy asset connected to a regional electricity market.
COUNTRY IMPACT
Gerus demonstrates the increasing role that private investment and regional electricity trading can play in expanding Namibia’s energy infrastructure.
Namibia has substantial solar resources, while its participation in the Southern African Power Pool creates opportunities for electricity to be traded across national borders.
A merchant generation model adds another potential route through which private capital can develop new generation capacity and participate in the regional market.
The project therefore represents more than an additional solar facility.
It demonstrates Namibia’s ability to host privately developed generation infrastructure capable of participating commercially in Southern Africa’s interconnected electricity system.
As Namibia’s mining, industrial, logistics and urban economies expand, additional generation capacity and a more flexible electricity market can contribute to the energy platform required to support that growth.
RELEVANCE TO SUNGATE
Reliable and expanding energy infrastructure is fundamental to the development of new commercial and industrial nodes.
Sungate is planned as a large-scale mixed-use development incorporating commercial, logistics, light-industrial, hospitality, retail and other supporting activities adjacent to Hosea Kutako International Airport.
The long-term growth of developments of this nature depends on Namibia continuing to strengthen both electricity supply and the wider market through which energy can be produced and traded.
Gerus provides evidence that this evolution is taking place.
For Sungate, the significance is not that electricity from Gerus is specifically dedicated to the development. It is that Namibia is adding new operating generation capacity and new commercial models for energy investment, strengthening the broader infrastructure environment within which future development can occur.
SOURCE
BB Energy. “Solarcentury Africa Celebrates Commercial Operation of its Gerus Solar Plant in Namibia.” 18 December 2025.
A Digital Substation Strengthens Namibia’s Coastal Power Network
NamPower has commissioned the N$394 million Sekelduin Substation near Swakopmund, adding advanced digital grid infrastructure designed to strengthen electricity supply and support growing industrial, mining and urban demand in the Erongo Region.
SOURCE SIGNAL
NamPower commissioned and energised the new Sekelduin Substation near Swakopmund on 24 September 2025, adding approximately N$394 million of new electricity infrastructure to Namibia’s coastal transmission network.
The 132/66/33 kV facility represents a significant technological milestone for the national grid. NamPower describes Sekelduin as Africa’s first fully digital substation, introducing advanced digital technology intended to improve the monitoring, control and operation of the transmission system.
The new substation becomes the principal transmission supply point for existing infrastructure serving Swakopmund, the NamWater South bulk-water scheme supplying Husab Uranium Mine, and ErongoRED’s 33 kV network.
The investment therefore adds electricity capacity and resilience in a region experiencing substantial mining, industrial, utility and urban demand.
COUNTRY IMPACT
Reliable electricity infrastructure is fundamental to Namibia’s ability to accommodate new mining, industrial and urban investment.
The Erongo Region contains some of the country’s most important mining and industrial activity, while the coastal economy continues to expand around Walvis Bay, Swakopmund and surrounding developments.
Sekelduin strengthens the electricity network supporting this activity, including infrastructure associated with water supply to Husab Uranium Mine and electricity distribution through ErongoRED.
Its significance therefore extends beyond the substation itself.
The project demonstrates that Namibia is investing in the supporting utility infrastructure required for economic expansion, while introducing advanced digital technology into the national transmission system.
As mining, logistics, processing and urban development increase electricity requirements, investment in grid capacity provides an important indication that the underlying infrastructure is being strengthened alongside that growth.
RELEVANCE TO SUNGATE
Sungate is a long-term mixed-use development whose potential is linked to the broader expansion of Namibia’s economy and the infrastructure required to support that expansion.
Sekelduin provides evidence of a wider national pattern: as economic nodes grow and new industrial demand emerges, the electricity infrastructure supporting those nodes must expand with them.
That principle is directly relevant to Sungate.
The development is positioned adjacent to Hosea Kutako International Airport at the convergence of air, road and rail, with commercial, logistics, hospitality, industrial and supporting-service uses anticipated within the wider development concept.
Growth in these activities ultimately depends on reliable bulk infrastructure.
Sekelduin therefore matters to Sungate not because the substation supplies the development directly, but because it demonstrates Namibia’s continuing investment in the energy backbone required to support larger economic and industrial nodes as they develop.
SOURCE
NamPower. “NamPower Inaugurates Africa's First Digital Substation.” 24 September 2025.