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West African nations to inaugurate regional electricity market June

West African nations to inaugurate regional electricity market June

Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja

Countries in the West African sub-region are to officially inaugurate a regional electricity market in June this year.

According to the Chairman, West African Power Pool, who doubles as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Transmission Company of Nigeria, Usman Mohammed, series of sensitisation workshops have been held in preparation for the take-off of the regional power market.

The WAPP is a specialised institution of the Economic Community of West African States and it covers 14 of the 15 countries of the regional economic community, including Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana and The Gambia.

Others are Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Mohammed, who spoke on the sidelines of an event in Abuja on Wednesday, said the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority, in conjunction with the WAPP, hoped to inaugurate the market in two months’ time.

The ERERA is the regulator of regional cross-border trade of electricity and interconnections in West Africa.

Mohammed said, “The WAPP, in conjunction with ERERA, the regulatory body for West Africa, is hoping to launch the regional electricity market by June 2018. Because of that, there are several sensitisation programmes we are carrying out to sensitise member utility firms to the plan to commence the regional electricity market.

“There are several things that are involved in the regional electricity market and synchronisation is just one of them. It means that all the electricity that is generated across the sub-region has to be synchronised so that from Nigeria to Cote D’Ivoire, we can have the same power frequency, as well as in other places.

“As the TCN, we anticipated this and that is why last year, we embarked on frequency control, which we achieved and attained at 39.5 and 30.5 frequencies. In the last 20 years, this has not been achieved and it enabled the WAPP and the rest of the countries to synchronise their power.”

On whether the regional market would guarantee adequate payment for the quantum of power that would be supplied to the regional grid, Mohammed stated that the right mechanisms were being put in place to achieve this.

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