Nineteen countries across Africa are set to benefit from the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP) with activities officially commencing this month.
ROGEAP will facilitate access to electricity for households, businesses, and schools across West, North and Central Africa.
Launched in 2017 as the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Project (ROGEP), the project was restructured and re-launched in November 2020 by ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) and its Technical and Financial Partners as the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP).
The project is meant to increase access to sustainable electricity for households, businesses, government hospitals and schools within communities across the 15 ECOWAS member countries and four other African countries using stand-alone solar products and entirely based on a harmonised regional approach. The project is being managed by a steering committee comprising representatives of the ECOWAS Commission, West African Development Bank and World Bank.
The $338.7 million project is funded by the World Bank, Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and the Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) of the Netherlands. The ECOWAS Commission, through the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE), and the West African Development Bank (BOAD) are responsible for the implementation of the project’s regional market development component and access to funding for stand-alone solar products component, respectively.
The creation of a business-friendly environment through identification of obstacles, technical and financial support for businesses across the 19 countries concerned in the development of solar energy, and the establishment of credit facilities to develop stand-alone solar products are among the expected outcomes of this project.
This is a much needed intervention for the region which currently has an electricity access rate of only 50%, with renewable energy forming only a fraction of its energy mix. Through ROGEAP, the legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks will be established and harmonised to encourage private businesses interested in developing off-grid electricity supply through solar products.
The ROGEAP Project will complement existing rural and peri-urban electrification efforts of ECOWAS member states and is in line with the ECOWAS Master Plan for Rural Electrification adopted in 2018 by the governing bodies. It will therefore support the grid-based Regional Electricity Access Project (ECOWAS-REAP), which is already underway with its Regional Implementation Unit within the Energy and Mines Department of the ECOWAS Commission. At a cost of $690 million, the project covers Cote d’Ivoire, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo and Mauritania.
The two projects combined and the individual efforts of member states in terms of electrification, have placed the ECOWAS region on the right path towards attaining universal access to energy services by 2030 as advocated by the United Nations “Sustainable Energy for all SE4all” initiative.- ESI Africa