Groupe Filatex, Madagascar’s largest employer, said it formed a venture with France’s Hyvity to add 50% to the Indian Ocean island nation’s electricity generation capacity by building hydropower plants.
The enterprise, to be known as ENHY, plans to install 100 MW of capacity by 2028 and 300 MW within a decade, the companies said in a statement on Thursday.
The initiative comes as hydropower is increasingly seen as a viable source of energy on a continent where 600 million people, or about half the population, have no access to electricity. Africa-focused startup Myhydro is looking to build small hydro projects across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia is filling a dam on a tributary of the Nile River that will power a 5 150 MW plant, and Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique want to build more facilities on the Zambezi River.
ENHY’s first two projects will be capable of generating a combined 20 MW within three years in the central Antsirabe region. Once the national transmission grid is expanded, that may be boosted to 60 MW, the companies said.
Filatex, in addition to running a real estate business, is also developing 231 MW of solar power in the nation of 28-million, where only 15% of people have access to electricity. Hyvity says it has 4 000 MW of projects in development.