West Africa power trade lifts Gambian utility NAWEC back into profit
Cost savings of around 42% came from drawing on Guinean hydro across the regional loop instead of burning imported fuel. Guinea-Bissau’s EAGB has moved from a monthly deficit of roughly one million dollars to a positive balance, and the market both now sell in went live this year.
The Gambia’s national utility NAWEC has returned to profitability, on cost savings of around 42 per cent achieved by taking Guinean hydropower through the regional transmission loop instead of burning imported fuel. Guinea-Bissau’s EAGB, over the same period, moved from a monthly deficit of roughly one million dollars to a positive balance.
Both figures come from the World Bank’s assessment of its West Africa regional power integration programme, published in May. Both rest on infrastructure that took years to build. The Gambia River Basin Development Organisation interconnection runs 1,677km of 225kV line with a transfer capacity of 800MW, linking Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia at a cost of around 880 million euros, co-financed by the African Development Bank among others. It carries fifteen transformer stations and two dispatch centres, at Linsan in Guinea and Tambacounda in Senegal.
The wider network is now continuous. A 1,303km 225kV line joins Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. A 228km line connects Kayes in Mali to Tambacounda. All fourteen continental West African countries have been interconnected in a single grid since late 2023, and more than three million people across Burkina Faso, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone and The Gambia gained an electricity service between 2019 and 2025 through the transmission and distribution work that accompanied it.
What changed this year is the market above the wires. The West African Power Pool and the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority now run the interconnected grids in synchronous operation and have expanded trade between them, turning a set of physical links into a system where power is bought and sold.
Financing came from the African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the West Africa Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and the Agence Française de Développement alongside the World Bank. The engineering included shield-wire technology on some corridors, drawing power off the transmission line itself to electrify the communities it passes.
Demba Jallow, High Commissioner of the Gambia River Basin Development Organisation, has described the Gambia-Senegal interconnection as pooling the resources of four countries and three river basins to supply continuous, secure and affordable electricity.
Generation follows next. The Sambangalou hydroelectric scheme in Senegal is planned at 128MW and expected to produce 402 GWh a year into the same loop.
