Existing and soon-to-be electricity customers in West Africa countries Chad, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo are about to get some help from the new Regional Emergency Solar Power Intervention Project (RESPITE).
The Project has approved for $311 million in financing form the International Development Association (IDA). It will include a $20m grant to help facilitate future regional trade and strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) to undertake its regional mandate.
The main objective of the RESPITE project is to rapidly increase grid-connected renewable energy capacity and strengthen regional integration in participating countries. It will finance the installation and operation of about 106MW of solar PV with battery energy and storage systems, 41MW of hydroelectric capacity and support electricity T&D interventions across the four countries.
The West African region has one of the lowest electrification rates, coupled with some of the highest electricity costs, in Sub-Sahara Africa. Rising oil prices are increasing the liabilities suffered by electricity utilities and countries are facing an acute power supply crisis that threatens to upend economic growth.
Rhonda Jordan-Antoine, World Bank Task Team Leader for RESPITE, says it supports many new solutions and substantial benefits for the countries and region. “Among others, it will provide fiscal space for countries to address food crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine, initiate development of competitively tendered grid-connected clean energy to alleviate current power supply crisis, positively address climate change by helping countries to move away from expensive and polluting fuels and help synchronise the WAPP network to enhance regional integration in the energy sector,” she explained.
Regional emergency solar power to help West Africa electricity grid integration
In addition to improving the reliability of the electricity supply in each of the beneficiary countries, the project has benefits that spill over country boundaries and complements existing regional integration efforts in the energy sector of all members states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). So says Boutheina Guermazi, World Bank Director for Regional Integration for Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa.
“It provides economies of scale, increases potential for regional trade through investments in transmission and generation infrastructure to integrate the markets physically and develops regional public good by facilitating knowledge sharing and capacity building,” said Guermazi.
RESPITE is part of the World Bank Group’s response to the energy crisis in West Africa – to accelerate on an emergency basis the deployment of more renewable energy in the region. The project will encourage international private developers to enter smaller and fragile economies and also demonstrates the viability of competitively tendered grid-connected solar and battery storage in participating countries.
