Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The company implementing the West Africa Power Project (WAPP) says it is set to complete the construction of five substations in Sierra Leone in the next six months.
TRANSCO CLSG says the completion of these stations will be followed by the supply of (additional) electricity in the five host districts. They are in Bikongoh (Kono), Kenema, Bumbuna (Tonkoli), Yiben (Koinadugu) and Kamakwie (Karene).
Speaking at a two-day meeting in Freetown yesterday, the TRANSCO CLSG General Manager, Mohamed Sheriff, said that by December the construction and setting-up of the stations would be completed by December this year.
The project aims to promote a regional energy market that will interconnect all four Mano River Union member countries of Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
This project is one of the five components of the WAPP Master Plan aimed at building a 225kv high voltage line of 1,303 km to connect the electrical networks of the countries. The line will run from Cote D’Ivoire, which produces the power, to the other three countries.
Sheriff was speaking in the context of an ongoing meeting in Freetown designed to coordinate and update donors and the government of Sierra Leone about the progress and challenges of the project implementation.
“Hopefully the sub-stations in Sierra Leone will all be completed this year. The timeline for all the substations in Sierra Leone is December,” he told Politico on the sidelines of the meeting.
TRANSCO CLSG was created to carry out the interconnection project as reflected in the model agreed upon by the four member states. The model is to finance, construct, own, operate, develop and maintain the interconnection line.
In May this year the company delivered transformers at one of its substations in Kenema. That delivery was part of a final phase of construction that involves the construction of the control room.
Kenema, in the east of the country, depends on an old thermal system in neighboring Bo in the south for its source of electricity supply. During the rains, the two districts source power from the Dodo Hydro Power station based in Kenema. As a result, electricity supply even at the best of times in both districts is erratic.
Upon the completion of all five sub-stations, according to TRANSCO CLSG, Sierra Leone will have up to 243MW of electricity with the possibility to increase and even sell off some to neighboring countries.
“Our transit capacity is 486MW. Sierra Leone will have 243 MW of this, but they can tap into it as much as 486MW. They can even sell to neighboring countries some of the energy if they need to,” Sheriff said.
Sierra Leone has a growing energy demand which it has been struggling to meet for decades. Currently the country is in a $30million dollar deal with the Turkish power provider, Karpowership. This agreement is proving too expensive to sustain despite huge savings made under the current energy minister, Kanja Sesay.
Despite the progress in the WAPP project, Minister Sesay stressed on the urgent need for it to be completed. He urged the company to communicate any challenges they might be facing.
“I want to use this opportunity to appeal to TRANSCO and its owners, engineers and the donors: delay is not an option for this project. We need a SMART solution from you that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. We are in a hurry to catch up with the rest of our colleagues,” Sesay told the conference.
As part of the broader phase of the project, rural electrification and the network expansion is also part of the components the Sierra Leone government has undertaken through the support of donors.
Just over two weeks ago the World Bank provided a $50million credit to the country to strengthen its weak energy infrastructure in the Western Area.
The WAPP project is being financed by several donors including the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Investment Bank and the German Development Bank (KfW), through loans and grants amounting to approximately $476 million.
© 2019 Politico Online
