... Liberia like many West African countries has one of the lowest electrification rates coupled with some of the highest electricity costs in Sub-Saharan Africa
World Bank has approved US$311m to increase grid-connected renewable energy capacity for West Africa in International Development Association financing.
Liberia, Chad, Sierra Leone, and Togo are expected to benefit from the new Regional Emergency Solar Power Intervention Project, while a US$20m grant has been allocated to help facilitate future regional power trade and strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of the West Africa Power Pool to undertake its regional mandate.
West Africa has one of the lowest electrification rates coupled with some of the highest electricity costs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, rising oil prices have increased the liabilities of electricity utilities and countries are staring at an acute power supply crisis that threatens to upend their economic growth.
"The main objective of the RESPITE is to rapidly increase grid-connected renewable energy capacity and strengthen regional integration in the participating countries," the Bank said. It will finance the installation and operation of approximately 106 megawatts of solar photovoltaic with battery energy and storage systems, 41 megawatts expansion of hydroelectric capacity, and will support electricity distribution and transmission interventions across the four countries.
The World Bank Task Team Leader of the project, Rhonda Jordan-Antoine, said, "Solutions supported by the new project are manyfold and have substantial benefits for the countries and the region.
"It will also provide fiscal space for countries to address the food crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine, initiate the 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."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
In addition to improving the reliability of electricity supply in each of the beneficiary countries, the project has developed a regional approach to enhance the potential of power trade in West Africa. The World Bank Director for Regional Integration for Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Northern Africa, Boutheina Guermazi, said, "RESPITE provides benefits that spill over country boundaries and complements existing regional integration efforts in the energy sector involving all member states of the Economic Community of West African States."
Guermazi added, "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."
The new project is part of the World Bank Group's response to the energy crisis in West Africa to accelerate on an emergency basis and the deployment of more renewable energy in the region.
She noted that the project would encourage leading international private developers to enter smaller and more fragile economies and also demonstrate the viability of competitively tendered grid-connected solar and battery storage in participating countries.
