The government of Ivory Coast has signed a concession agreement with a new investor. Kong Solaire will build a 50 MWp solar power plant in the north of the country.
Ivory Coast will be building a new solar power plant over the next few years. This is the aim of Kong Solaire, which has just been awarded the concession for a 50 MWp photovoltaic solar power plant by the Ivorian government. The power plant will be built near the historic town of Kong, which was destroyed by the French colonial resister Samory Touré in 1857.
This former trading town in the north of Ivory Coast and the surrounding communities will therefore be powered by solar energy over the next few years. Built under a public-private partnership (PPP), the Kong solar power plant will be capable of supplying more than 97 GWh of clean electricity to around 240,000 people every year. The park will be connected to a transmission line and a substation located close to the site. It will supply electricity to residential and commercial customers connected to the Ivory Coast grid.
An investment of 56 million euros
Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly, Ivory Coast’s Minister of Mines, Petroleum and Energy, has included this high-impact project in his master plan for the electricity sector up to 2040. It aims to triple electricity generation capacity from the current 2,907 MW to 8,600 MW. This master plan will ensure that electricity supply meets the rapidly growing needs of the economy and households,” he said.
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The addition of 50 MWp from Kong will require an investment of 37 billion CFA francs, or just over 57.6 million euros. The financing required to develop the project will be raised by Kong Solaire’s two shareholders, Ivorian company Africa Via and InfraCo Africa, an investment company in the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), based in London, UK.
Following the signing of the concession agreement in Abidjan, Minkaïla Salami, CEO of Africa Via, said he was proud of the progress made in developing this “first 50 MWp photovoltaic project in the Tchologo region”. The signing comes just a few months after the Ivorian government signed a concession agreement for another 52 MWp solar power plant in Sokhoro, in the division of Ferkessédougou.
Jean Marie Takouleu
