Renewable energy is the future
The unavoidability of investments in renewables was underlined by several speakers at a local conference held this week in tandem with the COP 21 conference.
The two-day Namibia and Renewable Energy conference was held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Franco Namibia Cultural Centre on Sustainable Development in Namibia in view of COP 21(Paris Conference on Climate Change).
The conference gathered speakers from both the public and private sectors to present strategies for Namibia’s partial transition from carbon to renewable energy.
HE Jacqueline Bassa-Mazzoni, the Ambassador of France said sustainable development, based on a larger contribution from renewable energy, is possible.
“The effects of this dynamic are known, which include enhanced sovereignty, access to more electricity which is important for social and economic development, job creation, infrastructure to export electricity in the sub-region and generating financial resources,” she emphasised.
Conrad Roedern, founder and owner of Solar Age, a company that has been installing Renewable Energy systems since 1989, and Chairperson of the Renewable Energy Industry Association of Namibia (REIAoN) warned that the situation is dramatic and the world is looking for a solution and has therefore for the first time agreed on a common agenda to curb climate change.
“Renewable Energy Generations is the leap forward which the world needs to get out of the carbon trap and solar energy is infinite, climate-compatible and available in such abundance that there is really no need to go to war for it,” he emphasised.
“Furthermore, solar energy is democratic energy, it can be generated right there where it is needed under control of those who need it and will be there for free all the time because the sun will never send us an invoice or block access because we did not pay a bill or two,” he said.
He further explained that the solar industry in Namibia constitutes the vehicle of change that is needed to survive.
“Our companies, some of them for more than a quarter of a century, stand ready to carry the energy revolution forward,” he announced.
This week’s conference was the start-up for a series of twelve events that are planned to take place once a month, every Tuesday at the FNCC in conjunction with the Embassy of France, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and InnoSun as sponsors.
