Studies
Solar power. N/A  N/A

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Development of projects of photovoltaic power plants connected to the grid in Burkina Faso

Country : Burkina Faso .
Client : SONABEL .
Start Date : January 2010
Completion Date : April 2010
Value of services : 31 050€
Funder : AFD (French Development Agency )
Associate/Partner : N/A
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Description :
The Burkina Faso launched a major program of electrification via the national operator SONABEL and the Electrification Development Fund (FDE), aiming at a rate of 60 % electrification of the households in 2015 against approximately 20 % at present.
This ambitious challenge requires consequent investments to be planned in the next years, in order to satisfy the growing demand in electricity of existing centres and the electrification of new centres. One of the main stake is however to contain the increase of production costs so that the energy remains affordable to the largest number. In this optic, the French Agency of Development (AFD) granted a loan to SONABEL, leaned to a program of investment for the secondary centres. Noticing the drift of fuel’s costs, and being conscious that even with the new electricity importation agreement with Ivory Coast (for a limited power) the dependence in the thermal is going to remain strong, the Burkina Faso is interested in diversifying its electricity supplies. A systematic integration of photovoltaic solutions, with the declines of observed capital costs, presents promising alternatives.
On behalf of the AFD-SONABEL loan, IED has been asked to conduct an identification study in order to calculate capital costs and estimate the cost of the photovoltaic kWh in the various possible scenarios
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Description of the Actual Services Provided The study aimed at validating, for secondary centres, managed mainly SONABEL (but also by the FDE), the economic and financial interest of the development of photovoltaic power plants. The study included :

1. Estimate market potential,
2. A more detailed study on a centre selected together with SONABEL. The demand and the curve of load, the cost of energy substituted as well as their evolutions will allow to specify on a particular case the sizing of the solar power plant and its characteristics with regards to a technical and economical analysis,
3. Inventory of existing initiatives in photovoltaic programs in Burkina Faso and their perspectives on a financial aspect,
4.Contacting with the French and European suppliers of equipments and photovoltaic material