Côte d’Ivoire solar plants: who is behind the 152MWp launched in three days?

Côte d’Ivoire’s energy minister, Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly, laid foundation stones for 152MWp of solar in the north of the country between 22 and 24 October, from a Katiola plant whose lenders are due to close financing within weeks to plants led by Ivorian capital at M’Bengué and by the Emirati group AMEA Power at Binguébougou.

“We led the negotiations, which were not easy, it has to be said,” Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly said on 22 October at Lonankaha, near Katiola, as he laid the foundation stone of a 50MWp plant for Katiola Solar Power. The developer counts Toyota and EDF as partners and has signed mandate letters with the EBRD and Proparco, with financial close expected in the coming weeks.

“The jobs generated by this plant will be reserved as a priority for the daughters and sons of M’Bengué,” he said the next day in the Poro region. Tongon Solaire, a company with wholly Ivorian capital, is developing the 52MWp Tongon plant there at a cost of about CFA33 billion, with works due to start in 2027 and the plant in service by mid-2028 at the latest.

“Ivorian companies have their place in the development of our country’s major infrastructure,” said Abdoul Soukpafolo Koné, president of Tongon Solaire, which will operate the plant for 25 years under its convention with the state.

Joël Mania Musikingala of AMEA Power said at Binguébougou on 24 October that “today, we are laying a foundation stone” and that “tomorrow, we want to see a solar plant rise”, as the Emirati group began building a 50MWp plant there through its subsidiary Korhogo Solaire. The plant is financed entirely with private funds, on a concession first signed in November 2016 for 25MWp, according to Agence Ecofin.

The Katiola and Binguébougou plants are each expected to bring electricity to more than 300,000 people and Tongon to close to 300,000, according to their developers and the minister, and Katiola Solar Power expects about 150 direct jobs during its 15 months of construction, rising to 350 at the peak of works.

The three plants count towards the government’s goal of 1,262MWp of solar on the national grid by 2030, spread across about 15 projects, as Côte d’Ivoire works towards 45% renewables in its energy mix.

The Katiola ceremony went “well beyond the symbolic laying of a foundation stone”, said Thomas Camara, who signed the project’s memorandum of understanding as mayor in July 2021.