Burkina Faso Gets Solar Plant After Energy Policy Change

OUAGADOUGOU (Capital Markets in Africa) – Burkina Faso signed an agreement to build a solar plant in the first such deal after the West African nation adopted legislation that authorizes private investment in the energy sector.

Windiga Energy Inc. of Canada will install 85,000 photovoltaic panels to generate about 20 megawatts in the north-western outskirts of the capital, Ouagadougou, the country’s energy minister, Alfa Omar Dissa, told reporters after the signing ceremony on Tuesday. The project will contribute to reducing the cost of electricity, Dissa said.

“We hope this will generate many other projects,” Finance Minister Hadizatou Sori Coulibaly said.

The investment follows after the liberalization of the West African nation’s energy sector in April as the government seeks to improve connectivity in a country where only 17 percent of the population has access to electricity, according to U.S. Agency for International Development data. The landlocked country of about 18 million has installed generation capacity of about 200 megawatts.

Gas Plant
Windiga Energy is also in talks with the government to build a $200 million gas power plant that will generate 140 megawatts, Chief Executive Officer Benoit La Salle told reporters at the same ceremony. The first phase of the solar plant, which can be extended to generate 30 megawatts, will cost 34 million euros ($38 million) and is funded by Windiga, he said.

In another project, the government ordered the construction of a 33 megawatts solar plant near the capital, of which the 47.5 million euros cost will be funded by a grant from the European Union and a French Development Agency loan, Dissa said. Over the next three years, the country wants to supply 300 villages with solar energy and install 3,000 solar lamps with funding from the state budget, he said.