West Africa Clean Energy Corridor launched at AUW

The West Africa Clean Energy Corridor (WACEC) aimed at accelerating the deployment of utility scale renewable energy into the region was launched on Wednesday at the African Utility Week (AUW) currently underway in Cape Town.

The WACEC, part of the AUW, was seen as a warning for governments and power utilities to play their part to harness benefits of renewable energy.

The program is to increase access to at least 88 percent of the population in West Africa by 2030, according to Jansénio Delgado, Renewable Energy expert at the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE).

Delgado told delegates that at least 52 percent of the population in the region have no access to electricity.

"So we have a big challenge in the region in terms of energy and electricity access," he said.

The West African region has big potential in terms of renewable energy from hydro, solar, wind and biomass.

"These resources are geographically distributed which makes them complimentary," Delgado said.

He said there is already a big pipeline of projects underway with Senegal taking the lead.

Preliminary researches show that the development of 10 GW electricity can still be injected into the grid by 2030.

"So the utilities and electrical companies should adapt to renewable energy as a next phase of electricity generation," Delgado said.

Delgado said there is the idea that renewables are expensive, "but the time is coming that renewables will really be a competitive source of energy."

Ellen Moran, senior operations advisor at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, said this can be done and referred to examples in California where there is already a 50/50 energy mix.

Challenge outside developed countries, however, is problems with financially sound utilities, Moran said.

"In many countries where utilities are in bad shape it is because the largest customer is the government and it usually does not pay utility bills regularly. So if governments are interested in growing the economy, they will have to do their bit," he said.

At the AUW which started on Tuesday, over 7,000 decision makers from over 80 countries were discussing the latest developments, challenges and opportunities in the power and water sectors in Africa.

Over 300 experts will over three days discuss innovative solutions to the continent's energy and water challenges and the exciting opportunities for utilities and industry players. Enditem