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ECONOMIY THE ENERGY BOOM

Par François.BAMBOU - Publié en juin 2013
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Thermal power plants and hydroelectric dams will usher in a new era of cheaper electricity.

In early 2013 a slight delay in starting up the Kribi gas-fired plant led to power cuts, but the problem was solved in a few weeks. The National Hydrocarbons Company says it is now technically ready to supply the plant with natural gas from Cameroon, a major first in using raw materials intended for producing energy.

The 216MW facility can supply 163,000 households and generate a 50MW energy reserve for aluminium-maker Alucam, which is seeking to boost its output capacity. The government and AES-Sonel financed 42.7 billion (€65 million) of the 173.2-billionFCFA (€264 million) project, with international and national sources pitching in for the rest.

The Kribi plant, says Jean David Bile, CEO of AES-Sonel, the public utility, “fills in the network’s gaps and allows us to have a gas-fired plant that diversifies production sources, which is important because hydroelectric power is at the mercy of the weather. At the end of the day, this improves quality of service for consumers,” but above all, “it is the key project that will enable the grid to keep operating until the next facilities come on line between 2015 and 2017.”

REGULATING THE FLOW OF THE SANAGA

There is no shortage of projects. The most impressive one is undoubtedly the Lom Pangar hydroelectric dam, which will have the vital function upstream of regularising the flow to other plants. Its construction ushers in “the era of plentiful, stable, competitive, renewable, cleaner and more affordable energy,” the President said at the 3 August 2012 groundbreaking ceremony for the dam and six-billion-cubic-metre reservoir. The facility, he continued, will “help us regulate the flow of the Sanaga, boost the output capacity of existing plants like Edéa and Song Loulou in the medium term and, in the longer term, complete the development of hydroelectric power along this mighty river. I am thinking of the construction of several works in the catchment area downstream from the Sanaga, such as Nachtigal, Song Mbengue and many others. The power shortage will be nothing but a bad memory.”

Two months earlier, Mr. Biya presided over a similar ceremony at the future Memve’ele hydroelectric dam’s site in the south. The 201MW facility, financed in large part in the framework of the cooperation programme with China, will also help ease the energy shortage and bring down the price of electricity. In the far south, the Mekin hydroelectric dam, including a 105-million-cubic-metre reservoir, 15MW power plant and 63kV high-voltage transmission line, is already 50% completed. The 25-billion-FCFA complex, 85% financed by China’s Exim Bank and 15% by the government, will change the lives of people in the south, who until now have had to put up with frequent and sometimes interminable power outages.

FUTURE TOWARDS RENEWABLE SOURCES

Cameroon’s government is planning to set up an agency to promote renewable energy, but in the meantime several initiatives are under way to find trailblazing power generation methods. An electrification project involving 1,000 rural localities has been set up in the framework of a cooperation programme with China. Another, the 530-billion-FCFA (€808 billion) “Photovoltaic Plants Cameroon 2020” programme, aims for the electrification of approximately 250 localities. Solar power is at the heart of the rural electrification strategy, but wind and biomass energy, although less known, are also making headway. Lastly, industrialscale structures to capture biogas in the Hysacam company’s rubbish dumps have been built.

By François BAMBOU