ABIDJAN, Feb 17 2016
Ivory Coast electricity producer CIPREL, a subsidiary of ERANOVE, completed a project on Wednesday to increase its total capacity by 234 megawatts (MW) to a total of 556 MW in a bid to meet fast-growing domestic and regional demand.
The 225 billion CFA franc ($382.15 million) project, which includes a steam and a heat turbine, took over two years to finish and makes CIPREL the country’s biggest independent producer of electricity.
Financing came from the World Bank, the African Development Bank, France’s Proparco and local banks including Bank of Africa, Nsia Bank and Societe Ivorienne de Banque, said CIPREL Managing Director Bernard Kouassi N’Guessan.
“The strong growth in demand for electricity, estimated at around 10 percent per year, is evidence of the strong economic growth that was have seen,” said Adama Toungara, Ivorian Minister for Oil and Energy.
He said additional capacity installed by 2020 could take the total to 4,000 MW and to 6,000 MW by 2030, though this would require investment of $22 billion. Hydroelectric projects would also add 587 MW by 2020, he said.
Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer and Francophone West Africa’s economic powerhouse, is a regional power exporter, supplying Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali. It plans also to supply Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Ivory Coast’s electricity capacity is now 1,975 MW and the government aims to push it to 4,000 MW by 2020.