By John Ikani
Togo is gradually shifting focus from importing more than half of its energy from Nigeria and Ghana to banking on solar power to develop access to electricity for its eight million residents.
To that end, it has inaugurated the largest solar plant in West Africa, in a push to increase access to electricity and develop renewables in the small coastal country.
The plant which is located in Central Togo, 267kms from Togo’s capital, Lomé, hosts 127,344 solar panels and has a planned production of nearly 90,255MWh of power annually to supply about 158,333 households a year, Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe said on Twitter late Tuesday.
Around 9% of the energy generated at the plant will feed into the local Blitta distribution network, which is enough to meet demand in the area.
Named after the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the project received more than 35 billion CFA francs ($63.7 million) in loans from the West African Development Bank and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.
Capacity for an additional 20 MW is scheduled to be built on the same site by the end of the year.
