Advancing the West African Power Pool initiative for sub regional development

The West African Power Pool (WAPP) was formed as a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Western Africa under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The body which currently comprises 14 of the 15 member countries of ECOWAS has as part of objective the establishment of a reliable power grid for the region and a common market for electricity.

A cursory look at the region indicates that West Africa need rapid transformation to enhance the standard of living of the populace a situation that involves adequate provision of needed infrastructure such as energy including electricity for socioeconomic development.

Report indicates that the population of West Africa is estimated to be 340 million with Nigeria contributing over 50 percent of this. Energy use, particularly electricity is projected to rise in the nearest future. At an average economic growth rate of about 6 percent annually, the demand for electricity is also projected to grow in the same or higher proportion.

The WAPP member states cover a surface area of 5105 million km2. In terms of electricity supply infrastructure, Nigeria dominates the WAPP electricity production, by contributing about 57 percent to the total of 38,826.6 million kWh that was consumed.

West African countries project a future power generation requirements and peak demand at 5.8 percent annual growth rate. It is inevitable that the sub region pursues an approach that responds adequately to global climate change obligations and meets with this projection of future generation requirements. The sub region is endowed with coal and other hydro resources that could also be increased or added to energy mix to use for power generation.

While countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire in the West African sub region are blessed with an abundant supply of various kinds and categories of energy resources, access to electricity in the sub region has remained at less than 50 percent in the urban areas and less than 20 percent in rural areas.

Industry close watchers warn that if adequate precautions are not taken, West Africa sub region could well become a prime source for future GHG emission. With a relatively large population size coupled with the desire to increase electricity generation capacity to meet future demand, it is imperative that the sub region adopts a strategic intervention for her energy consumption agenda.

According to report, the WAPP system could only have an available capacity of 9550 MW, which represents 58 percent out of the 16,391.7 MW total installed capacity. It follows that the system can benefit from improvement to increase its energy output.

The WAPP power system covers two geographical zones A and B, each consisting of interconnected systems, which, according to ECOWAS vision 2015, should be connected together to facilitate electricity trade in the region.

In the opinion of analysts, there is the need to increase all infrastructural capacity. Also, this needs to be done with the mind of not repeating pre-industrial age errors of the industrialised countries.

“For West African countries without any strategic intervention, the quest to increase production capacity in the power sector would definitely take the same trajectory as those of developed countries”, analysts said.

KELECHI EWUZIE