Right timing for Electricity sector boost in West Africa

Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and her neighbouring Western African countries as a matter of urgency need to considerably reinforce their electricity supply infrastructures if they hope achieve the desire economic growth.

A cursory look at the electricity situation in the West Africa region indicate that retrofitting the existing installations and constructing new generation and transmission facilities require significant financial resources which are very difficult to attract due to the countries specific economic and political conditions.

While it appears that the cooperative approach to the electricity systems are undertaken within the West African Power Pool project, it is not sufficient to cope with the challenge of attracting the required funds to meet future regional electricity demand.

Industry close watchers opine that the electricity crisis in West Africa has worsened during recent years in spite of the efforts made to construct new electric power plants and transmission networks.

The gap according to experts is still large between the present trend of investments and actual needs.

They observed that reforms in the electricity industry have been gradually undertaken in the region under the initiatives of donors who sponsored them. The ongoing restructuring consists of privatising the public electricity utilities in order to attract private funds to the electricity sector.

The heavy debt of most of the utilities in the region, and their low financing capability explain the under-capacity of electric generating systems in West African countries. In addition, the governments are unable to provide the necessary funding for renovation and further development of electricity infrastructures.

In the summations of analysts in the energy sector, despite the huge infrastructure hurdles, West Africa has a brilliant economic future. Nigeria on its own can be the key driver in the ECOWAS region. This populated country (50 percent of the region’s population) is also potentially the richest with its high resources of natural gas.

They observed that irrespective of Nigeria’s capacity in terms of resources, there is likely not going to be advancement in the electricity improvement if neighbouring countries do not share a regional strategic view with it.

Report indicates that through the West African Gas Pipeline Project, Nigeria will provide its natural gas to Benin, Togo and Ghana at an inexpensive price compared to the international market.

This will create an opportunity to generate electricity at low cost not only for these countries but for the whole zone A, including Nigeria itself. Such a new concept will necessitate reinforcing the pipeline capacity in the coming years.

Experts opine that with the perspective of the long-term depletion of gas, West Africa can become attractive for those industries such as petrochemicals which need these raw materials. It will create the opportunity to develop the economy of West Africa based on value added products instead of reliance on raw material exports to industrialised countries.

According to them “This perspective also addresses the issue of the optimal use of natural gas and the need to introduce other more sustainable energy sources. Such an industrialisation perspective, if based on credible and shared commitment, will enhance the economic value of the whole region and increase the willingness of investors to be involved in the development of the electricity infrastructures of the region”.

KELECHI EWUZIE