The West Africa Clean Energy Corridor (WACEC) was launched last week in Cape Town in an effort to accelerate the deployment of utility scale renewable energy.

During the launch, which took place at African Utility Week, government and power utilities were told to play their part in harnessing the benefits of renewable energy.

Jansénio Delgado, a renewable energy expert at the Ecowas Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (Ecreee) told delegates that at least 52% of the population in the region did not have access to electricity.

“So we have a big challenge in the region in terms of energy and electricity access,” he said.

According to Delgado, there are plans to increase electricity access to 88% of the population by 2030, however there are some challenges.

He said the region had big potential for renewable energy, specifically hydropower. “The region has big potential in terms of renewable energy from hydro, solar, wind and biomass. These resources are geographically distributed which makes them complimentary.”

He explained that there was already a big pipeline of projects underway throughout Africa, with Senegal taking the lead.

Based on preliminary conclusions of renewable energy studies, Delgado said results showed that the development of 10 GW of electricity can still be added to the grid by 2030.

“So the utilities and electrical companies should adapt to renewable energy as a next phase of electricity generation,” he said.

Delgado also foresees the cost of electricity levelling in the future as the development of solar electricity generation technology becomes less costly.

Renewable energy challenges

“But of course solar energy also has problems,” Delgado said, which included the intermittency and non-availability of solar energy at times. He suggested that other sources of renewable energy were needed, hence the development of the Clean Energy Corridor.

Delgado said the perception of risk among potential investors was another problem and that they would have to embark on various “derisking activities” in some Ecowas-countries. This included strengthening the policy framework by simplifying processes for procurement and pricing.

Adding renewable energy to the grid

Delgado said it was technically possible to inject renewable energy into the grids. “For me it is not a big problem in terms of connectivity of renewables into the grids. The preliminary results show it is technically possible,” he said.

Delgado added that he felt utilities were sometimes reluctant to have an intermittence of renewables in their system. “There are usually also problems with guarantees because in some regions the guarantees investors want, cannot be given.”

However he maintained that it can be economically viable for the region.

And while renewable energy currently comes with a hefty price tag, Delgado said “the time is coming that renewables will really be a competitive source of energy”.