ECOWAS begins $338.7m Off-grid power project in Abuja

Solomon Ezeme

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) through its Department of Energy and Mines, has kicked off the $338.7 million Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP), to boost power supply across member states.

The Project Management Unit (PMU) of ROGEAP which is now in its execution phase, has now officially commenced work in Abuja.

The Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP), formerly Regional Off-Grid Electricity Project (ROGEP), was restructured and re-launched in November 2020 by ECOWAS and its Technical and Financial Partners to increase access to sustainable electricity for households, businesses, government hospitals, schools within communities across the 15 ECOWAS member countries and four other African countries using stand-alone solar products.

“The ROGEAP Project will complement existing rural and peri-urban electrification efforts of ECOWAS Member States and is in line with the ECOWAS Master Plan for Rural Electrification adopted in 2018 by the governing bodies.

“It will therefore support the grid-based Regional Electricity Access Project (ECOWAS-REAP), which is already underway with its Regional Implementation Unit within the Energy and Mines Department of the ECOWAS Commission,” the ECOWAS Comission for Energy and Mines announced on Tuesday.

Earlier, Sediko Douka representing H.E Jean Claude Kassi Brou, President of the ECOWAS Commission, had welcomed and addressed members of the PMU in Abuja. He reminded the unit of the importance of ROGEAP to ECOWAS and its partners, which is to integrate the national power systems into a unified regional electricity market, to provide regular and reliable energy at competitive cost to the citizenry of the ECOWAS region.