West Africa to hold forum on regional electricity market

Major players in the electricity sector in West Africa will meet in the Burkinabe capital of Ouagadougou on November 16 to push forward the agenda of the proposed regional electricity market.

The forum aims to promote cooperation and information sharing among the regulatory bodies of West African states, the Accra-based ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA) said in a release on Thursday.

"The forum will afford us an opportunity to focus on the numerous electricity-related issues facing our region. We have huge but unevenly spread potentials, and we have to be smart," said ERERA Chairman Honore Bogler.

Bogler said electricity regulation remained largely unknown to West African authorities, while the forum can enable regulators to convince policy makers that electricity regulation was the best way to addressing many power challenges in Africa.

The regional bloc has set the ambitious goals to increase the share of renewable energy to 31 percent of its energy mix and to achieve 100-percent access to sustainable energy by 2030.

Part of ERERA's mandate is to assist West African countries without national electricity regulators to set up their own and contribute meaningfully to the development of the region.

The phase one of the regional electricity market, set for launch in the first quarter of 2017, will address the twin problems of energy access and energy security. Endit