ENGIE is the latest large company that commits to West African solar, joining 300 attendees at the West African Clean Energy Summit.
Philippe Miquel, CEO, Western & Central Africa will update attendees at the Clean Energy West Africa Summit about ENGIE’s partnership in Senegal with ANER, the National Renewable Energies Agency, to spur the deployment of renewable energy within the country.
The first part of the agreement between ENGIE and ANER involves the development of solar energy for individuals in multi-occupancy or individual housing. The aim of this measure is to study the initial deployment of these solutions to 11,000 homes in the city of Dakar and its suburbs. The main focus will be on photovoltaic solar panels for the production of electricity and solar water-heaters for the production of hot water. As part of the deal, ENGIE also committed to market energy performance contracts (EPC) to industrial operators and the tertiary sector in large urban communities in Senegal. The final piece of the partnership also involves ENGIE’s participation in an industrial cluster to promote renewable energies, due in large part to professional training sessions.
ENGIE will be joined at the summit by sponsors First Solar, DuPont, Jinko Solar and GIZ as well as up to 90 speakers representing some of the most exciting projects in West Africa.
Also active in Senegal, GreenWish Partners, who have completed a 20 MW solar PV project, will send Chief Investment Officer, Gilles Parmentier. The company has also just announced a 50:50 equity partnership with Oriental Renewable Solutions to co-develop a 50MW solar PV project in Jigawa State, Nigeria. Other developers attending to speak include: Gigawatt Global, Solarcentury, Afrinigeria Power, Nigerian Capital Partners and Dubai-based developer Access Power.
We spoke to Access Power’s Karim Megherbi who predicts “West Africa as the top spot for new IPP projects between now and 2020”. Access have active projects in Ghana, Mali and Nigeria with construction due to start at the end of 2017 on 75 MW of solar energy. They will also launch their Co-Development Fund (ACF) programme at the summit.
The fund is an annual continent-wide competition for selected technical and financial support of up to USD $7 million. ACF 2017 will be officially launched on March 7 and the deadline for submissions is April 31. Megherbi said, “We will present the details of this year's programme at the Clean Energy Summit: Africa, an excellent platform for developers in West Africa”.