2GW green energy corridors planned for West Africa

Clean energy corridors with a combined capacity of 2GW are being planned for the West African region under plans put forward by the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) at the Solar and Off-grid Renewables West Africa event in Accra, Ghana.

Mahamma Kappiah, executive director of ECREEE, said the corridor will involve connecting many 10-15MW solar PV plants, as well many other technologies such as wind and hydro. He added: “In the 2GW, we have different contributions from each country. Nigeria wants to take 1GW of it, the rest is shared among other countries, some with 200MW and some 500MW.”

ECREEE is working on identifying which countries will have projects, where are the most suitable locations for PV parks and how they are going to distribute the projects.

The concept of the corridors is expected to be cleared by the end of this year, having drawn on technical assistance funded by the EU.