Solar Manufacturing

Solar Manufacturing Hub

An essential element of Botala’s business model is to contribute to the development of Botswana’s business capacity and the growth of commercial enterprises with an offtake market for CBM and electricity Botala proposes to generate.

Botala recognised the desirability of finding an appropriate partner with technical and management skills in the renewables sector, which led to the signing of a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Solar Finland, a recognised leader in solar energy.

Solar PV Manufacturing

Botala conducted a prefeasibility study that demonstrated sufficient value to Botala, in partnership with Solar Finland, to proceed with ongoing studies to build a state-of-the-art, fully automated plan to produce high quality solar PV panels, which  will significantly benefit Botswana and Southern Africa.

Botala is leading the PV Studies and would own the manufacturing plant jointly with Solar Finland and other funding partners, with Botala being the lead operator.

Key attractions include:

• Supply high quality solar PV panels to solar projects within Southern Africa.

• Promote and establish hybrid solar/gas energy plants and supply the gas and solar panels.

• Cooperate with Scandinavian Green Energy Funds and companies in Africa.

A summary of the key terms of the MoU can be found here

Solar Finland

Solar Finland is a privately owned company headquartered in Salo, Finland.  For more than four decades Solar Finland developed solutions that helped to decrease the use of conventional energy through their solar technology base.  During years of research and development they have created numerous sophisticated technologies and developed the world’s first fully automated solar panel factory in Salo, Finland.

Solar Finland has a global reputation in setting industry standards in terms of product quality and energy production. Their goal is to innovate and create new products and solutions to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels.

They have a profound understanding of solar photovoltaic (pv) systems operating in harsh conditions and can ensure that their products deliver consistent performance under these conditions. Their Finnish design technology and know-how enables the best solutions for harvesting solar energy for private consumers, commercial business, and the public sector.

Solar Finland has an excellent track record of developing and implementing local solar manufacturing capacity anchored on local off-take and skills development.