The Republic of Namibia is a country in south-western Africa.  With a surface area of 824,292 km2, it is the 34th largest country in the world. It stretches for about 1,300 km from south to north and from 480 to 930 km in width from west to east. The population is 2.5 million as of 2018. Windhoek is the capital and German and English are the official languages.

Namibia is classified as an upper middle-income country by the World Bank but poverty incidence is still high. Agriculture is mostly based on livestock rearing, fishing and food processing. A major contributor to the services sector is tourism. All major production sectors— mining, tourism, livestock and meat production, and fisheries—are export-oriented and are thus vulnerable to external trends.

The electricity demand through the national grid is supplied by domestic electric power plants (thermal and large-scale hydro) and imports from neighboring countries.

Namibia has significant renewable energy potential. Solar, wind, biomass, gas and uranium resources are significant, but remain largely underdeveloped. Namibia’s hydro potential is limited to a few rivers only. Wind resources in Namibia are considerable. Especially along the Namibian coast the conditions are very favorable for large-scale wind energy production, with wind speeds above 10 meters per second.

Solar energy potential is the most abundant renewable energy source in Namibia. Namibia has an excellent sunshine regime, which produces annual energy yields of between 1,600 kWh/kWp in coastal areas and up to about 2,100 kWh/kWp in selected locations in southern Namibia. Solar in Namibia is primarily used for water pumping and for rural electrification to power radios, lighting, TVs and fans.