Despite their significant energy potential, many West African countries are too often faced with untimely power cuts affecting activities in all their major sectors.
While the vision of a regional electricity market is beginning to materialise in the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), only 42% of the total population of this region has access to electricity, according to the World Bank in 2022.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has noted that “the energy deficit costs the entire African continent 2-4% of its GDP yearly”. However, these countries have a daily average of 7 to 8 hours of sun per day every year. Faced with the challenge of poor energy access, the need to embrace solar is on the front burner.
The AfDB has committed to supporting this dynamic energy transition through the Desert to Power initiative launched in 2016. This ambitious programme has made it possible to identify 85 projects to be implemented in the Sahel countries in West Africa. They include Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. These projects aim to make the Sahel the largest solar production area in the world with 10,000MW of energy capacity. In all, 250 million people living in the countries making up the Sahel strip will be able to benefit from it in years to come.
Faced with the urgency of producing clean, sustainable, and cheaper energy for the region, the regional project for urgent intervention in the solar energy sector (RESPITE), financed to the tune of $311 million by the AfDB, was launched in January this year in Freetown, Sierra Leone. This regional initiative will help to reduce the cost of energy by producing solar energy and ensuring connectivity between electricity networks. It will be implemented in four countries in the region: Togo, Sierra Leone, Liberia as well as Chad in central Africa.
According to the World Bank, “the project will help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by financing the installation and operation of approximately 106 megawatts of photovoltaic solar energy with batteries and storage systems, expanding 41 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity. It will also support power distributions and transmissions in the four countries”.
RESPITE will be implemented in collaboration with the West African Power Pool, an institution covering 14 member ECOWAS states working to integrate the different national electricity networks into a unified regional market.
Prince Monsekea, a solar energy expert and former head of operations at Soleva, a company offering electrification solutions in Africa based on the installation of solar kits, explained that this regional initiative should be seen as a step to strengthen industrialisation because the sub-region needs reliable and less expensive energy for production.
“West Africa is on the path to achieving universal access to power through the inclusion of solar energy systems in the various interconnected power grids between countries. Everyone has the right to energy, especially clean and affordable energy. Solar energy is an effective solution since the region has good solar radiation,” he told Africa in Fact.
In Togo, the authorities are aiming to have 50% of its energy come from renewables, not only to ensure its energy independence but also to contribute to the fight against climate change. To achieve its objectives, in 2018 the country set up an energy plan costing approximately $1.8 billion to produce and supply electricity to more than three million inhabitants by 2030.
The country has created a National Agency for Rural Electrification and Renewable Energies (AT2ER) to carry out the project, which will focus, in collaboration with the private sector, on installing solar kits to provide affordable and sustainable electricity to remote areas. ‘’This [will] allow us to slightly reduce the import of electricity from countries like Nigeria and Ghana,” explained Robil Nassoma, AT2ER’s Director. Togo imports 50% of its energy needs from these two countries.
In line with the new vision, in June 2021 the country saw the opening of the 92-hectare Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed solar power plant in Blitta, about 230 km from the capital, Lome, with an initial capacity of 50MW, built by IPP AMEA Togo Solar, a subsidiary of the Dubai-based company, AMEA Power. Work began in March this year to expand capacity to 70 MW, which is expected to be completed by December, making it the biggest solar plant in West Africa capable of meeting the electricity needs of s approximately 222,000 households across the country. Two other solar power plants with a total capacity of 140 MW will be built by 2024 elsewhere in Togo. Meanwhile, the electrification rate has increased from 45% in 2018 to 60% in 2022 and the country aims to reach 75% in 2025.
Other countries in the sub-region have also developed well-defined national plans to address the energy deficit through photovoltaic solar power. Senegal, for example, has since 2012 been working on a national energy strategy that aims to achieve a cumulative installed solar capacity of 235 MW by 2030.
As part of this plan, Senegal’s first photovoltaic solar power plant with a capacity of 30 MW was installed in 2017. Other major projects are in progress, the most recent of which is the Diass solar power plant inaugurated in May 2022, some 40 km southeast of the capital, Dakar.
The country has also acquired two solar photovoltaic plants in the municipalities of Kahone and Kael with a capacity of 30MW as part of a World Bank-initiated programme. These will provide electricity to more than 540,000 people in Senegal and reduce emissions by 89,000 tons per year.
Although Ghana is a producer and exporter of electricity, the country has for several years been seeking to diversify its energy production to meet the ever-increasing demand for electricity of its growing population by its growing population. According to data from the country’s energy commission, “the electrification rate is around 87% while about 13% of the population does not have [access to] electricity”.
To achieve universal access by 2030, Ghana is banking on strengthening renewable energy projects that have already been up and running run for several years. With an initial focus on solar energy, Ghana in May last year signed a financing agreement of $69.88 million with the AfDB and other international financial partners for scaling up its renewable energy programme.
Through this financing, the country intends to equip 1,350 schools and 500 health centres in rural areas with off-grid autonomous solar mini-grid systems. The country is also installing metered photovoltaic solar systems for those living in urban and semi-urban areas. This project will also supply electricity from solar to 6,890 households, 6,001 SMEs and 6,890 public buildings across the country. In all, Ghana hopes to have renewables make up 10% of the country’s energy mix by 2030.
These developments echo those in other countries in the sub-region. According to Monsekea, there are some 40 projects in execution or under development in West Africa and the Sahel. For example, the Power to Desert project is developing solar power plants – the Yeleen network – with a total capacity of 52MW in four cities, including Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, as well as the installation of 100 solar mini-grids and 100,000 solar home systems for households in rural areas. Burkina Faso hopes to meet 30% of its electricity needs from photovoltaic solar panels by 2030. Already, the country wants to set the bar high with a regional solar park project with a capacity of 75MW to be developed near the city of Kaya.
Despite this enthusiasm, funding is still a challenge. According to the AfDB, it will be necessary to mobilise $3 billion to fully realise the Power to Desert project, which the bank hopes to do through the Africa Sustainable Energy Fund. But to attract a significant flow of investment, experts say, the financial and operational capacity of public electricity companies must be improved as well as policies put in place to strengthen an enabling environment for greater private investment.
Blame Ekoué is the Togo correspondent for the BBC and for Paris-based media house, ANA. He has also reported for Associated Press and Radio France International. He holds a BA in Communications from the Leader Institute in Lomé. Formerly deputy editor of the West Africa Revue, he has been a contributor to the Lome-based Business and Finance magazine since 2015.
