West African Leaders Move To Improve Sustainable Energy

Following identified areas of deficits in the energy ecosystem, leaders of West Africa under the aegis of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have mapped out ways to enhance the availability of electricity in the region by boosting power generation.

This was the crux of the 7th Edition of the ECOWAS Sustainable Energy Forum (ESEF2022) organised by the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) in collaboration with Nigeria’s Ministry of Power, which was held in Abuja on Monday.

ECREEE is a specialized agency of the ECOWAS with a public mandate to promote sustainable energy markets in the ECOWAS region.

Speaking during the event, President of ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Omar Touray, made the commitment of the Community to sustainable energy adding that improved electricity will advance the region’s industrialization process.

Dr. Touray, who was represented by the ECOWAS Commissioner for Infrastructure, Energy and Digitalisation, Sediko Douka, said 50% of Africans have access to electricity, but less than 10% are accessible to those in the rural areas.

He noted that ECOWAS is working hard to integrate all communities into the grid, stressing that: “By next year we will have electricity market where contractors can buy electricity.” He further added that: “We are developing a new energy policy for the region that will be operational by June next year.”

According to him, “The ECOWAS Commission and its specialised energy agencies are working tirelessly to address these challenges. Our strategic objective is to integrate the operation of the Community’s national power grids into a unified regional electricity market to ensure a stable, regular, and reliable supply of competitively priced electricity to the citizens of the ECOWAS member States in the medium term.

“We plan to achieve this objective by promoting and developing power generation and transmission facilities and equipment and coordinating electricity trade among the ECOWAS Member States.

“It is the reason that we launched the regional electricity market in June 2018 and the ECOWAS Statutory Bodies adopted a Master Plan for the development of regional power generation and transmission infrastructure 2019-2033 aiming to generate 16000 MW and construct 23000 km interconnection electric lines.”

He revealed that: “The ECOWAS Commission is also working on improving energy access for the ECOWAS rural population and actively promoting the deployment of off-grid energy solutions, such as clean energy mini-grids and stand-alone technologies.

“To this end, several regional projects are at the stage of implementation within the region. Our objective is to have an access consolidated rate of 70% by 2030.”

“The ECOWAS Renewable Energy Policy aims to increase the share of renewable energy in the region’s overall electricity mix to 48% in 2030; and the ECOWAS Energy Efficiency Policy, aims to implement measures that free 2000 MW of power generation capacity and in the medium term, more than double the annual improvement in energy efficiency.”

“By next year we will have an electricity market where contractors can buy electricity.” He added that: “We are developing a new energy policy for the region that will be operational by June next year.”

He said the commission aims to increase the renewable energy policy in the region to overall electricity mix to 48 per cent by 2030 and other policies related to energy efficiency.

Dr. Touray said that ECOWAS was also implementing measures that will add 2000 Megawatts of power generation capacity and in the medium term more than double the annual improvement of energy efficiency.

Vice President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo who declared the summit open, said Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan (ETP) would require funding of about 1.9 trillion dollars up to 2060.

Professor Osinbajo, who was represented by the Minister of Power, Mr Abubakar Aliyu explained that 410 billion dollars of this amount was above usual spending and implies that Nigeria needs to mobilise an additional 10 billion dollars per annum.

”The realisation of this goal depends on the implementation of our nation’s Energy Transition Plan (ETP) which was recently launched by this administration.”

”Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan is a prime example of the needed evolution of policies to deliver both the growth in energy consumption necessary for development and the climate response required for the preservation of our planet.