Guidelines and Standards for Renewable Energy

The Mauritius Renewable Energy Agency (MARENA) has been created to oversee and promote the development of Renewable Energy (RE) in Mauritius and operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Energy and Public Utilities.

Clean energy is vital for the sustainability of any economy in the world and to reduce emission of harmful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Mauritius currently lacks proper institutional and technical capacity to provide quality assurance on the influx of RE (and associated) technologies (RETs) into the country. Along with the strengthening of the regulatory and institutional framework, standardisation will prevent the importation into Mauritius of substandard technologies and help RETs to become even more marketable by providing a foundation for certification systems, promoting international trade of uniform high-quality products and supporting transfer of expertise from traditional energy systems.

With the support of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through the United Nations Development Programme and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) through the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), MARENA is expected to address this gap and come up with robust standards. In order to fast track the development of RE in Mauritius, there is an urgent need for the development guidelines, norms and standards for On-Grid, Off-grid, Hybrid systems, Storage systems (e.g. batteries) and associated components regarding, but not limited to:

(i) Solar PV;

(ii) Onshore Wind;

(iii) Offshore Wind;

(iv) Wave;

(v) Bioenergy; and

(vi) Municipal Waste to Energy.