The Zagtouli plant will be sited 20 km from the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, and its 96,000 solar panels will generate 32 GWh per year, providing 6% of the countrys current electricity production enough renewable electricity to meet the needs of 40,000 people.
E.U. commissioner Andris Piebalgs announced the financial support last week. The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the French Development Agency (AFD) agreed to supply a further 38 million in loans for the project, which the Burkinabe ministry of mines and energy says will be put out to tender soon.
Only 15% of the Burkinabe population have access to electricity a figure that drops to 3% in rural areas. Overall, the 35-hectare Zagtouli plant, scheduled for completion late next year, will provide 22 MW of installed capacity.
Commissioner Piebalgs commented, "More than 1 billion people on the planet do not have access to electricity, half of them in Africa. This is one of the greatest brakes on Africa's development. To unlock this huge potential the E.U. pledged to connect 500 million people to energy and we put our money where our mouth is.
"The new solar power plant in Burkina Faso shows that the E.U. is committed to supporting a much-needed change in Africa's production of sustainable energy. For Burkina Faso, this means a massively improved supply of greener electricity, increased energy independence of the country, and a more secure energy supply for the population."
E.U. institutions have provided more than 450 million for energy projects across West Africa in the last five years.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.