Original Story Published by: Footprint to Africa
The African Development Bank, on Wednesday, 6 September 2017, approved a €50 million funding loan to support a 44-megawatt hydroelectric power project in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire to boost the country’s elctricity production.
Located at about 148 km north of Abidjan, the Singrobo-Ahouaty Hydropower Plant Project, to be commissioned in 2021, will support the thermal production of electricity during periods of high demand as well as diversify the country’s energy mix.
Côte d’Ivoire intends to increase its share of renewable energy from 15% to 42% by 2021. The loan, granted under the private sector window of the African Development Bank, also aims to promote and support Ivorian private entrepreneurship, through financial support and expertise provided to the local promoter of the hydroelectric power station.
For the African Development Bank, the project will create jobs and ancillary infrastructure, including the asphalting of a 4-km road axis close to the plant.
In the long term, the road project will facilitate the movement of people in neighboring villages, and reduce travel time from one and half hours to just 10 minutes. Another expected value add is the easy evacuation and marketing of agricultural products to local market.
The project will also connect communities in the vicinity to the power grid, reduce fossil fuel dependency, and environmental pollution.
The construction of the Singrobo-Ahouaty Hydropower Plant Project harmonizes with the African Development Bank’s High5 strategic priorities, including the “Light up and power Africa” pillar. It is also consistent with the Country Strategy Paper for Côte d’Ivoire (2013 – 2017) as well as the Bank’s Ten Year Strategy.
The commissioning of the Singrobo-Ahouaty hydroelectric dam will reinforce Côte d’Ivoire’s status as an electricity exporting country in the sub-region. The bank’s intervention complements the support already provided to the Ivorian energy sector through productive investments in the Côte d’Ivoire-Sierra Leone-Liberia-Guinea Interconnection Project (CLSG), approved in 2013 as well as the Reinforcement of Transmission and Distribution Grids (PRETD) Project approved in 2016.
The African Development Bank’s share of renewable energy projects in the electricity financing portfolio has increased from 14% between 2007 and 2011, to 70% between 2012 and 2017.
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