17 Nov 2019

Dream Africa Energy is aiming to build one of the biggest solar manufacturing plant in Selebi Phikwe area in 2020.

The founder of Dream Africa Energy, Mr Paul Chileshe informed BOPA in an interview that the company had already secured a 150 hectare farm between Selebi Phikwe and Tobane to set up the envisaged solar plant.

The project will also include among others, the construction of 2 000 staff houses, hospital, golf course and a hotel.

Mr Chileshe said all the products which would include among others, glass and lithium batteries, would be manufactured locally but sold locally and outside. Dream Africa Energy was registered in 2012 and for the past seven years it has been conducting researches pertaining to the solar systems. “We are done with the researches now it is time to implement our findings,” Chileshe said.

He stated that solar technology was advanced and cheaper for people to access.

The multi-million pula project is facilitated by SPEDU, whose mandate is to provide business facilitation to attract inward investment to the region in order to create employment, exports and import substituting products and ensure sustainability of the economy without over reliance on mining activities.

Mr Chileshe said investing in Selebi Phikwe turned out to be a wise decision as the company will tap into the available skilled human resource in town particularly engineers who lost their jobs after the closure of the BCL mine.

The availability of infrastructure such as roads and railway line, he said would ease movement of goods from the plant to local and external markets. 

“Our project also requires a lot of water therefore this area is of big advantage to us as it has abundant potable water,” stated Mr Chileshe.

The factory is also expected to support any form of local manufacturing businesses such as automotives and Mr Chileshe said manufacturing businesses would no longer have to procure materials from far places hence reducing production costs.

Kalisa Consultancy Services and Engineering environmentalist, Ms Sephiwe Phillimon stated that the organisation had been engaged to do Environmental Impact Assessment as required by law.

She said the exercise was expected to take nine months and would cover communities in Selebi Phikwe and Tobane.

The project, she said would provide employment opportunities for Batswana adding that 10 000 people would be employed within 10 years of operation being skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled human resource. Ends