The World Bank has approved support for a regional transmission network to enable electricity trade among the western African countries of The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal. The US$200m World Bank credit will finance the construction of transmission lines to connect the electrical networks of the four countries and ground wires equipped with fiber optic cables to improve public communications.
The World Bank’s support of the OMVG Interconnection Project will help countries in West Africa to change the energy mix away from thermal generation by connecting them to more sustainable and cost-effective energy resources such as Guinea’s 6,000 MW of hydropower potential. Also, gas along the coast from Cote d’Ivoire to Nigeria and in Mauritania can be converted into power.
In addition to World Bank, the project will be financed by French Development Agency (AFD), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Islamic Development Bank (ISDB), the West African Development Bank (WADB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Kuwait Fund (KF), and the German Government (KfW). The four governments will provide approximately US$16m to finance interest during the construction phase to the total project cost of US$711m.