NamPower's mobile giants arrive to tackle blackouts

Rhino and Buffalo power
N$52 Million substations promise faster power restoration
Gifty Muhinda
  • 5 Days Ago - 2025-04-08 00:00:00
NamPower’s N$52 million investment into two South African made mobile substations, Rhino (92 tons) and Buffalo (82 tons), both rated 20MVA, aims to cut outage downtime and to boost grid resilience. “The acquisition of the mobile substations allows NamPower to better fulfill its duties in securing supply to the nation,” said Kahenge Haulofu, the national power utility’s executive director.
After eagerly awaiting them, NamPower's massive mobile substations, the 92-ton Rhino and 82-ton Buffalo, finally arrived in Namibia to help combat persistent power outages. Named after the Big Five, Rhino and Buffalo were originally planned in 2018 but got delayed due to procurement issues and COVID-19. They will be stationed in Windhoek but are deploy-able nationwide to provide temporary power during grid failures.
Before these two giants, Nampower had a small 10MVA mobile substation which they have now renamed 'Lion', and there may be future plans to acquire 'Elephant', a gigantic 40MW mobile substation.
These substations were mainly intended to temporarily restore power during transmission outages, maintenance, new installations, or upgrades, but will now also be used to assist NamPower in faster restoration of supply to major customers.
The substations, which had to be custom-built due to their unique weight and size specifications, can handle multiple voltage ratios. Rhino can handle 132/66 kV to 33/11 kV while Buffalo can handle 132/66 kV to 22/11 kV. "These mobile substations are strategic transmission assets, primarily aimed at mitigating the risk of extended interruption in power supply to the customer," said Haulofu.
Manufactured in South Africa with components from at least 5 suppliers, such as European firms ABB and SGB-Smit, their construction was a huge team effort indeed.
The substations finally departed Benoni, South Africa, on March 25, and started on their 1 400 km journey, which included a reroute via Botswana due to a fallen bridge 15km before Windhoek on the Rehoboth road. About a week later, they arrived in Namibia at 7:29 pm on 31 March, 2025. In Namibia the mobile substations will be transported using NamPower’s Volvo FH520 trucks.