The West African Power Pool in collaboration with the Government of The Gambia are organizing a forum on power purchase interest. From the 10th to 11th of October 2022 at Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Centre, Banjul. The Gambia This forum is funded by the World Bank through the Solar Project Development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The overall objective of this Forum is to, on the one hand, present the results of the technical, economic and financial feasibility study to the OMVG countries and, on the other hand, to discuss among other things the cost range of energy that interested countries will wish to import electricity from the regional solar park.
As part of the Utility-scale Renewable energy Project in the ECOWAS Master Plan, a 150 MWp Solar PV plant with large scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) has been identified to be developed in The Gambia with a plugand play concept. The “plug & play” concept is a concept that uses a proven approach hence mitigating development risks for potential Independent Power Producers (IPP) and thus incentivizing and attracting competitive pricing from reputable IPP’s for the project implementation. This is achieved firstly through the Government of The Gambia playing an active role in supporting the site identification based on grid capacity, solar irradiance, land availability, grid connection servitude and access infrastructure. Secondly, the Government de-risks the signing of the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) by committing to facilitate the securing of necessary permits for the development of the project.
This forum is a high-level engagement of OMVG countries on the project. This aims at leading the OMVG countries to evaluate the opportunity to exchange or buy electricity from the regional Solar Parks in The Gambia and more globally to reflect on the next steps of the project within the framework of joint or bilateral agreements as well as the regional electricity market where excess power can be sold through the Day-Ahead Market of the Regional Electricity Market. To this end, this Forum is bringing together the decision-makers of OMVG countries (Senegal, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau), the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA), OMVG as well as the WAPP with support from the World Bank and any other interested sponsor to allow for an exchange and discussions on electricity exchanges from the 150 MWp Regional Solar Power Park by presenting
(i)the results of the technical and economic studies of the project and
(ii)(ii) to discuss all concerns and challenges of the concerned countries in order to find solutions and next steps necessary for the implementation of the regional solar power park project. This will be extended to other regional projects once this forum is well mastered.
The Forum will be attended by the Minister for Petroleum and Energy of The Gambia Hon. ABDOULIE JOBE, Managing Director, NAWEC Mr. NANI JUWARA and the Secretary General of WAPP, M. SIENGUI A. KI.
