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by Adewale Sanyaolu
Nigeria and other Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member states’ plan to boost economies through uninterrupted power supply may have suffered a setback as the integration of their national transmission systems is currently under threat due to fund shortages.
The task of creating a regional electricity market, which aims at power integration was given to West African Power Pool (WAPP) by the authority of Heads of State and Governments of ECOWAS.
Addressing a gathering of WAPP members at its 12th General Assembly, which ended in Accra, Ghana, last week, Chairman of WAPP Executive Board, Mr. Usman Gur Mohammed, who is also Nigeria’s interim Managing Director for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), lamented that payment for electricity consumed is threatening the sustainability of WAPP’s efforts.
And to ensure that the initiative is achieved, Mohammed said WAPP is also working with the World Bank to provide securitisation in the form of partial risk guarantee to strengthen the cross border electricity transactions.
He argued that the cross border electricity market cannot be successful without member countries of WAPP providing cost-reflective tariffs and functional distribution networks (companies), adding that a systematic approach needed to be looked into to resolve the revenue collection challenges.
‘‘The integration of our national transmission systems in West Africa and the creation of an electricity market is about the most important steps aimed at regional integration. This assignment given to WAPP by the Authority of Heads of State and Governments of ECOWAS is clearly the most important step at integrating our economies.
“This year’s General Assembly intends to advance electric power integration and electricity market creation. Though the implementation of our priority interconnection and generation projects still remain major thrusts of our WAPP focus and strategy, the establishment of the Information and Coordination Centre (ICC) and the apparatus of electricity trading has also gained increased momentum and relevance,’’ he said
He lauded the European Union for the grant of €30 million for the construction of the ICC, which started in January 2017.
According to him, the project has five control centers (CACs) in Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal, and would be completed on schedule in December 2019, adding that the WAPP Executive Board has approved the condition precedent for the take-off of the Phase 1 of the Regional Electricity Market.
He further explained that nine out of 14 mainland ECOWAS member countries are interconnected while the remaining countries including Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Guinea Bissau and Gambia), shall be interconnected to the regional grid in 2019, after the completion of the Cote d’Ivoire-Liberia-Sierra Leone-Guinea interconnection and the Guinea-Senegal-Guinea Bissau-Gambia interconnection.
‘‘WAPP is still expanding the interconnection of our member countries through several projects. Some of the notable projects include North Core (connecting Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin), 2nd Nigeria-Benin interconnection, Nigeria-Benin-Togo-Ghana, Ghana-Burkina Faso, Burkina Faso-Mali, Guinea-Mali interconnections and several other interconnection projects at various stages of development. Many more of such projects are in the pipeline and they will become clearer after the completion of WAPP Master Plan Update.”
