Photo by: Bloomberg
The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (Sefa) has approved a $780 000 preparation grant for the Phase 1 development of the 40 MW Starsol solar photovoltaic plant, in Chad, which will become the first independent power producer (IPP) scheme to be connected to the national grid.
Implementation of the project’s first phase would increase installed capacity by 45%, generate around 64 GWh of electricity a year and provide electricity to the equivalent of 16 871 households, as well as to the corporate and public sectors.
The grant by Sefa, which was a multidonor trust facility established to support private-sector investments in small- to medium-sized clean energy projects in Africa, would specifically finance the costs related to technical assistance for the completion of the plant design and grid study, as well as advisers for legal and financial structuring of a bankable IPP.
The project was aligned with the Chad government’s focus on the development of renewable energy as a national energy policy priority.
Less than 2% of Chad’s population had access to electricity and the electricity generation costs are high, as most of it was provided by private diesel generators.
Sefa was endowed with contributions from the governments of Denmark, the US and the UK, and was hosted and managed by the Energy, Environment and Climate Change Department of the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The project was also aligned with the AfDB’s Action Plan 2011-2015.