Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-01-29, 17:46:37 | version 1.34.01
| 40 Elsewhere in the region, the Senegalese Agency for Rural Electrification is implementing Rural Electrification Projects (ERILs) using solar systems to electrify more than 650 community centres and more than 120 rural localities.105 In Ghana, the Ghana Energy Development and Access Project (GEDAP), implemented by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum with national and international partners, aims to deploy approximately some 7,500 solar PV systems in schools, hospitals, and off-grid communities. The project includes financing schemes to make solar feasible for consumers by providing discounts on equipment and providing rural households with solar home systems via subsidised loans from local banks.106 Solar Lighting Solar technology is also being used throughout the region to supply lighting, either through PV lighting systems or solar lanterns. In Togo, the African Biofuel and Renewable Energy Company (ABREC) has installed approximately 13,000 solar street lights.107 Guinea-Bissau’s Development Programme for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (PRODERE) project, developed by ECOWAS, aims to replace public lighting with PV- powered lighting throughout the country.108 The Solar Street Lighting Project in Sierra Leone plans to install 10,000 stand- alone solar street light units in Freetown, Lungi, and 12 district capitals.109 Lighting Lives in Liberia, implemented by the World Bank, focusses on developing a market for distribution of solar lanterns through private retailers.110 Ghana’s Solar Lantern Distribution Programme, launched in February 2013, distributes solar lanterns to rural off-grid communities to replace kerosene, aiming to provide 200,000 lanterns over five years. Composed of three phases, the work targets communities on islands or with no access roads, to establish a local assembly plant and build awareness, and to distribute lanterns.111 In Senegal, the Lighting Africa project conducted a market analysis, designed an awareness plan, and initiated a pilot programme to distribute solar lanterns in schools.112 Solar Heating, Cooling, and Drying Use of solar-powered dryers and water heaters is evident throughout the region, although estimates of total penetration are limited and difficult to assess. Mali’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources estimates that the country has about 1,500 200-litre solar water heaters and 1,000 solar dryers.113 In Niger, solar water heaters are used in various schools, clinics, and some households. The country also produces solar water heaters and dryers domestically.114 In the Gambia, solar water heaters have been used for several decades, resulting in significant in-country experience with the technology. The country’s Kombo Beach Hotel installed a solar water and hot water storage system to shift from electric/diesel to solar, which has been operational since 2007. The annual savings from the project are estimated at USD 18,000, resulting in pay back over three years.115 Although most hotels in the Gambia continue to use either electricity or fuel-oil boilers to heat water, many smaller hotels—especially those located away from the grid—are increasingly investing in solar systems.116 BIOMASS POWER Biomass power is derived from the conversion of plant materials and organic wastes into electricity. In ECOWAS this refers mainly to three different fuel groups: wood fuel, by-products from crops production, and energy crops for power generation.117 Potential OverallstatisticsontheavailabilityofbiomassresourcesinECOWAS are often unreliable.118 A basic assessment of the potential for producing bioenergy crops shows divergent potentials for different fuel crops across the region. Based on ECREEE’s initial assessment, the potential for producing a number of crops is high in countries such as Benin and Nigeria, while Cabo Verde, Liberia and Sierra Leone appear to show more limited potential.119 A more detailed assessment of the potential availability of four newer fuel crops— sweet sorghum, jatropha, cassava, and cashew—was conducted by ECREEE and UNIDO under the “Regional potential assessment of novel bio energy crops in fifteen ECOWAS countries” project, again with widely divergent results by crop.120 Installed capacity Several biomass projects throughout the region produce power for the grid. The Abidjan Municipal Solid Waste-to-Power biogas project provides 3 MW of capacity.121 The 42 MW Biovea Biomass Plant, located in Aboisso, Côte d’Ivoire is a registered Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project that would use woodchips from forestry residues at palm oil plantations to export power to the national grid; commission was planned for June 2013, but the current status remains unclear.122 In Nigeria, the Ibadan GNEEDER biogas plant (0.5 MW) began operating in 2010, producing power from slaughterhouse waste.123 Ghana has four small biomass plants with a total installed capacity of 2 MW.124 To date, most biomass power production is used for self- generation in industrial plants. In Senegal, a biogas digester at a slaughterhouse in Dakar has a capacity of 1000 m3/day and can annually produce 876 MWh of electricity to power the slaughterhouse (reducing consumption from the utility by 48%) and 1752 MWh of heat to produce more than 25,550 m3 of hot water.125 Several other ECOWAS Member States use biomass for co- generation: Ghana has 4 MW of biomass co-generation; Nigeria is home to a 5 MW biomass plant that produces power for a cement plant; and Guinea-Bissau has a 150 kW co-generation pilot project using cashew shells.126 In Côte d’Ivoire, a number of industries use biomass (including sugar bagasse, palm husks, cotton husks, coco, and other agricultural residues) for self-generation, totalling 80 MW of installed capacity.127 As momentum behind biomass generation grows, several major projects are under development. In Sierra Leone, the Addax Makeni Bioethanol and Power Plant, financed and under construction as of December 2011, will annually produce 80 million litres of fuel ethanol from sugar cane and 32 MW of electricity from residual bagasse, of which 15 MW will be fed into the national grid.128 Côte d’Ivoire has shortlisted seven private companies to develop grid-connected biomass plants under a buy-own-operate agreement.129