The African Development Bank
(AfDB) has said that more than 57 per cent of the people in West Africa are
without access to electricity. The bank stated this in its “West Africa Monitor
Quarterly”, for the second quarter of 2014 report.
It said that the percentage
approximated the average for sub-Saharan Africa,” but extremely low compared
with 23 per cent in the developing world and 18 per cent globally.”
According to the report,
with inadequate generation capacity, low electrification, and sporadic,
unreliable and expensive service, energy is at the top of questions requiring
adequate policy intervention.
It explained that access
rates varied from country to country, with eight per cent in Niger and 15 per
cent in Burkina Faso, Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau. The
report added that
about 70 per cent of the population in Ghana had access to
electricity while 87 per cent were hooked to supply in Cape Verde.
It also said that there were
disparities in access to electricity between rural areas and urban centres in
the sub-region, with urban dwellers having more access than rural people.
According to the bank, the
trend is more glaring in Ghana where 87 per cent of urban dwellers have access
to electricity, compared with the five per cent in rural areas.
It disclosed that West
African countries had joined the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative towards
achieving universal energy access by 2030, with renewable energy shared
improvement and efficiency.
It pointed out that the
sub-region had great potential to expand its use of renewable energy sources,
which included modern biomass, hydropower, solar, and wind and had remained
untapped.
“Using such sources would
help to expand access while reducing reliance on traditional biomass, increase
reliability and affordability, and contribute to climate change mitigation.
Hydro power in West Africa has an estimated potential of 25,000 megawatts, yet
only 16 per cent has been exploited and despite its wealth in waterways, it
only holds 214 dams out of 1,282 dams in Africa. In addition, several
in-country lakes and dams hold promise for renewable energy development,” it
said.
The report said that the
Volta River held great potential for Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo while Lake
Chad could be used to serve Niger, Nigeria, Cameroun and Chad.
It acknowledged that solar
power projects were spreading across the sub-region, including the 155 MW Nzema
solar power plants in Ghana, one of the largest in Africa.
The bank revealed that
Burkina Faso, Ghana and Guinea had potential for hydro-power while Mali and
Niger had for solar energy, and Cape Verde, Gambia and Senegal for wind
resources.
Earlier in June, Minister of
Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo, had disclosed that less than fifty per cent of
Nigerians currently have access to electricity, a whole seven per cent lower
than the west African average reported by AfDB.
Prof. Nebo disclosed this at
the 15th Herbert Macaulay lecture organised by the Engineering Faculty of the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, adding that the Federal Government was, however,
working hard to raise access to 75 per cent by 2020.
He said government was also
looking at the possibility of exploiting the country’s untapped coal resource,
currently estimated to be in excess of three billion tons in reserve, to power
electricity in the country.
He explained that coal
production declined in Nigeria due mainly to the discovery of oil and the
perception that coal was a dirty energy, adding that a large quality of coal
deposits was wasting away in such states as Enugu, Benue, Kogi and Gombe.
The minister noted that with
the current shortages of gas, the federal government was pursuing coal
development as new frontier in the country.
Vanguard
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