The Presidency of the Republic of Chad has announced in a press release that the country’s Minister of Oil and Energy, Boukar Michel has signed an agreement with Ghanem Al Mazrouei, president of Dubai-based company, Almaden Emirates Fortune Power LLC, for the construction of a giant solar park at an unspecified location in Chad.
The government specified that the big solar plant could have a capacity of between 200 MW and 400 MW, without providing further details.
Almaden Emirates Fortune Power LLC is a joint venture between Dubai’s investment holding company, Emirates Fortune Group and Chinese solar module maker, Almaden, which also operates a 150 MW PV panel factory in Dubai. Prior to this announcement, the two companies were already cooperating under a partnership agreement.
If built, the project will significantly help reduce the number of people without access to electricity in the country. Of the around 14.4 million inhabitants of Chad, around 13 million still have no power. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the landlocked country currently has just 125 MW of power generation capacity (mostly relying on diesel and heavy fuel oil generators), which primarily serves N’Djamena, Chad’s capital.
In order to reduce power shortages, the local government is also encouraging independent power producers to take action. Last July, a consortium including solar project developer, NewSolar Invest, engineering group, CIEC Monaco, and infrastructure and renewable energy project financier, Arborescence Capital was awarded a loan – the amount of which was not divulged – by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to construct the Starsol plant, a 32 MW PV facility, which is set to supply electricity to N’Djamena.
The financing includes funds for the improvement of the interconnection line between Chad and Cameroon, and the rehabilitation of the generation assets of the country’s power utility, National Electricity Company (SNE).
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.