By Lot Ndamanomhata

In October 2026 the Minister of Mines and Energy, Modestus Amutse, told the National Assembly that government will not privatise Namibia’s electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure. This paper argues that the position is sound.

Transmission and distribution are natural monopolies; whoever owns them controls who may connect, at what price and by which route. Public ownership allows tariffs to be regulated, protects a strategic national asset and keeps grid capacity aligned with generation.

The paper also argues that retaining the network is not an argument against private investment or against reform.

The cheapest route to lower energy costs is to expand low-cost renewable generation, storage and regional interconnection on a publicly controlled grid. NamPower’s current project pipeline and the Namibia–Angola Baynes Hydropower Project show how that can be done.

Electricity is the input to every other economic activity: mining, fishing, agriculture, manufacturing, water pumping and the digital economy. How a country owns and governs the wires that carry electricity therefore shapes the cost of living and the cost of doing business.

Addressing the National Assembly, Minister Amutse stated that government must retain control over the network in order to regulate tariffs, protect national security and ensure that transmission capacity is aligned with electricity generation (The Brief, 15 October 2026).

He described electricity as a national security asset and warned that if it were left entirely in private hands, prices could become expensive and “uncontrollable”, including in decisions on distribution routes.

This article does three things. It explains the economic and strategic reasoning behind the minister’s position. It shows that retaining public control is compatible with, and in fact enables, private investment in new generation and the Electricity Control Board’s (ECB) regulatory work.

And it sets out how alternative energy can bring electricity costs down, drawing on NamPower’s 30-year institutional record, its present projects and the Baynes partnership with Angola.

2. Why the Network Is Different from Generation

Electricity supply has three stages: generation, transmission (high-voltage lines moving power over long distances) and distribution (lower-voltage delivery to towns, farms and households).

Economists generally treat the first as potentially competitive and the latter two as natural monopolies. Building a second, parallel national grid next to the first would be wasteful, so one network serves everybody.

That has a practical consequence. A generator, however efficient, has no value unless it can reach customers.

The grid owner therefore holds a gatekeeping position. Where the gatekeeper is a private, profit-seeking entity, it can set connection terms, charge access fees and decide which routes to build.

Without very strong regulation, that power can be used to extract monopoly rents. Where the gatekeeper is a public utility accountable to Parliament and a regulator, the same power can be directed at national objectives such as affordability and universal access.

The minister’s concern about tariffs follows directly from this logic. Tariffs are informed by production costs, and he warned that private control would make prices harder to regulate (The Brief, 2026).

3.Three Arguments for Public Control

3.1 Tariff regulation and affordability

A private network owner must earn a return for shareholders. In a small market of roughly three million people spread over a vast territory, much of the network serves sparsely populated areas where costs per customer are high and revenues low.

Private operators have an incentive to prioritise profitable corridors and large industrial users. A public utility can cross-subsidise rural connection, which is why Namibia’s rural electrification programme matters.

The Ministry reported that 1,956 households were connected through an investment of N$75.5 million in the 2024/25 financial year, and that the programme targets schools, public institutions and households with a N$308.5 million investment (Kangumine, 15 April 2025).

Programmes of this kind are driven by development objectives, not by commercial returns, and are hard to sustain on a purely private model.

3.2 National security and resilience

A national grid is critical infrastructure. It supports hospitals, water supply, defence, communications and the mines that earn foreign exchange. Control over how the grid is operated, where it is extended and who can connect is a sovereign responsibility.

This is the sense in which the minister calls electricity a security asset. Foreign or concentrated private ownership of the system’s backbone would make decisions about outages, priorities and expansion subject to commercial or external considerations.

3.3 Aligning transmission with generation

The minister also stressed that carriage capacity has to be aligned with energy production (The Brief, 2026). This is a system-planning point. Generation built in the wrong place, or without lines to carry it, is stranded. Lines built without generation sit idle.

A single planner with a national view can sequence new power plants, substations and interconnectors together. Fragmented ownership makes that coordination harder and more costly.

4.The ECB, BW Kudu and the Independent Transmission Company Framework

Public control of the grid does not mean closing the door on private capital. The ECB’s handling of the BW Kudu application illustrates a careful middle path.

BW Kudu applied for a transmission licence to build a 400 kV line connecting its proposed 420 MW gas-to-power plant near Lüderitz to NamPower’s Obib substation. NamPower, which currently holds the transmission monopoly, objected after the ECB advertised the application in May 2024, and a public hearing followed.

ECB Chief Executive Robert Kahimise has said the board recommended to the minister that the proposed investment was justified. The minister nevertheless determined that the application should remain pending until a regulatory framework for private participation in transmission exists (The Brief, 2026).

The ECB has since begun developing an Independent Transmission Company (ITC) framework and issued a request for proposals for consultancy services in August 2026.

The framework is expected to define the conditions under which private investors may build and operate transmission infrastructure and how such networks connect to NamPower’s grid.

Kahimise has noted that the issue is increasingly important because private investors are pursuing large generation projects that need substantial transmission capacity.

The minister’s remarks that the ECB is a regulator that can look at different forms of regulating, and that government and the ECB are working to avoid diluting the government’s position on public control, show that regulation and ownership are being deliberately reconciled (The Brief, 2026).

The sound sequence is rules first, licences second. Approving individual private lines before a framework exists would set precedents by accident. A framework can specify tariff-setting, open access, technical standards and, if needed, handover or step-in rights, so that any private line operates within the national system and not outside it.

5. Cheaper Energy Through Alternative Sources

The strongest answer to concerns about electricity prices is not a change of ownership but a change of generation mix. Namibia has among the best solar resources in the world and substantial wind potential, and the cost of solar and battery storage has fallen sharply over the past decade.

Domestic renewable generation reduces dependence on imports, which expose consumers to foreign price changes and supply shortfalls. Baynes is expected to reduce reliance on imported electricity from neighbouring countries (Ndamanomhata, 2025).

NamPower’s Integrated Strategic Business Plan (ISBP 2026–2030) sets targets of 80% self-sufficiency and 70% renewable energy by 2030. The utility’s pipeline includes:

• Generation: the 100 MW Sores|Gaib solar PV station near Rosh Pinah (groundbreaking 19 June 2025, N$1.6 billion, planned completion in Q4 2026, battery-storage ready); the 80 MW Omburu Solar PV II; and the 40 MW Otjikoto biomass station at Tsumeb, described as the country’s first of its kind and designed to provide consistent baseload renewable power.
• Storage: a 54 MW battery energy storage system at Omaruru (listed on NamPower’s project page as the 51 MW/51 MWh Omburu BESS) and a 45 MW/90 MWh Lithops BESS. Storage lets midday solar be used in the evening peak and reduces reliance on costly imports and peaking plant. The two project descriptions differ in capacity figures, and readers should confirm the final specification with NamPower.
• Transmission: the 400 kV Obib–Oranjemond interconnector (about N$1.2 billion), the 400 kV Auas–Kokerboom line (expected in the second half of 2028), the Khomas 220/66 kV substation (N$340 million, co-funded with the City of Windhoek), the Erongo 220/66 kV substation (N$170 million with Erongo RED), the Otjikoto–Masivi 220 kV line, the Otjikoto–Omatando 400 kV line and the Angola–Namibia (ANNA) interconnection. (Sources: NamPower Projects page; ISBP 2026–2030 summary.)

Three cost mechanisms are at work. First, solar and wind have no fuel costs, so once built they cap the portion of tariffs that depends on fuel or imports. Second, storage and biomass firm up variable renewable supply, reducing the need for expensive emergency power.

Third, interconnectors let Namibia export surplus and import when it is cheaper to do so, a benefit that depends on a strong, nationally planned grid.

There is also a role for private capital here. Independent power producers can finance generation, and households and businesses can install rooftop solar.

The point is that these contributions are most valuable when connected to a grid whose rules protect the public interest.

6. NamPower at 30: Institutional Record

NamPower is celebrating 30 years of operation as a corporatised national utility. Its story is one of building the backbone of the national economy: a transmission network spanning the country, the Ruacana hydropower station on the Kunene River, links to the Southern African Power Pool and, now, a shift towards solar, storage and biomass.

Its project list shows an institution that is investing for the next generation, not only maintaining legacy assets. Co-funding arrangements with the City of Windhoek and Erongo RED also show a model of public partnership at local level.

An important lesson is that a publicly owned utility can deliver modernisation while remaining answerable. The 30-year milestone is a reasonable moment to ask NamPower to match its record with transparent performance reporting on losses, reliability and cost per unit, so that public ownership keeps earning public trust.

7. Namibia and Angola: Baynes as a Public-Partnership Model

The Baynes Hydropower Project is the largest example of cross-border public cooperation in Namibia’s energy sector. Namibia and Angola signed the Baynes Implementation Agreement on 18 November 2024.

The 600 MW station on the Kunene River will share output equally, with 300 MW to each country, at an estimated cost of N$22 billion (about US$1.2–1.3 billion, depending on the source) over a six-year construction period. Financial close was targeted for the end of 2026, with dam construction to start in the first quarter of 2027 (Ndamanomhata, 2025; Kangumine, 2025).

Several features support the public-control thesis. Namibia has chosen a public funding model for the hydropower station and the regulating dam, with the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises mobilising funds.

A Binational Implementation Unit and a Joint Project Office will coordinate with the Permanent Joint Technical Commission on the Cunene Basin. NamPower will integrate the generated energy into the national grid, and the ANNA interconnection will link Angola to the Southern African Power Pool.

The regulating dam also strengthens bulk water supply in the arid north, which shows the multi-purpose value of publicly directed infrastructure that a purely commercial investor might not prioritise (Ndamanomhata, 2025).

Hydropower is also low-cost power once built, with long asset lives and no fuel expense. Delivering 300 MW into the grid would materially reduce import dependence and stabilise long-term tariffs.

The risks need attention: funding delays, environmental concerns and cross-border coordination were all identified as challenges. Sources also differ on completion timing; one commentary refers to 2031, while a six-year build from a 2027 start implies a later date, so timelines should be monitored against official updates.

8. Policy Recommendations

1. Keep transmission and distribution under public control, as the minister has affirmed, and entrench it in law and licensing conditions.
2. Complete the ECB’s ITC framework before any private transmission licence is granted, with mandatory open access, tariff oversight, technical compliance with the national grid code and clear connection to NamPower’s network.
3. Accelerate renewables and storage by fast-tracking the Sores|Gaib, Omburu, Otjikoto and BESS projects and encouraging independent power producers to sell power through transparent, competitively priced procurement.
4. Make Baynes a financing and delivery priority and publish regular progress and cost reports.
5. Pass the savings on. Report how each new renewable project changes the cost of supply and ensures ECB tariff determinations reflect those reductions.
6. Invest in demand-side measures such as rooftop solar, efficiency and rural mini-grids, so households and small enterprises benefit directly.

9. Counterarguments and Limits

The case for public ownership is not without critics. Advocates of private participation argue that state utilities can be slow, indebted or inefficient, that private capital can fund grid expansion the state cannot afford, and that competition can lower costs. These concerns are real: NamPower’s capital programme is large, and public financing is finite.

The evidence from other countries is mixed. Some unbundled or privatised systems have delivered efficiency gains; others have produced higher tariffs and weaker investment in rural areas. The ECB’s ITC framework is, in effect, an attempt to capture the benefits of private capital without surrendering control, and its design will determine whether that balance works.

This paper’s position is that, given Namibia’s size, geography and development objectives, retaining public ownership of the network while opening generation to private and renewable investment carries the lower risk.

10. Conclusion

Minister Amutse’s decision rests on sound reasoning: a national grid is a natural monopoly, a strategic asset and the platform on which cheaper energy depends. Namibia’s route to lower electricity costs runs through solar, wind, biomass, storage, interconnection and hydropower, built on a grid that remains accountable to the public. With NamPower marking 30 years, a strong project pipeline and the Baynes partnership with Angola, the foundations are in place. The task now is disciplined delivery and transparent regulation.

Lot Ndamanomhata is from Ekoka. This article reflects his views and writes entirely in his personal capacity.

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