The European Investment Bank (EIB), an international financial entity whose main objective is to provide finance and expertise for sound and sustainable investment projects in developing countries, has announced that it will provide a subsidy of close to US$ 28m for the expansion of Zagtouli solar power plant, the largest solar power plant in the West Africa region and the first of its kind in Burkina Faso.
Completed back in 2017 by Société Nationale d’électricité du Burkina Faso (Sonabel), which is the national electricity company of the West African country, Zagtouli solar power plant sits on a 55 hectare (135-acre) piece of and at Zagtouli on the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou. It includes 129,600, 260-watt solar panels and it so far produces 37 MW of electricity.
Zagtouli solar power plant has improved the daily lives of tens of thousands of people, thanks to interconnections to the neighboring cities of Ouahigouya (180 km to the north of the capital) and Gourcy (140 km to the north-west of Ouagadougou).
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The funds from the EIB will enable the national electricity company of Burkina Faso to increase the capacity of the power plant from the current 37 MW to 50 MW.
Benefits of the expansion project to the country
The expansion of Zagtouli solar power plants capacity will consequently allow Burkina Faso to increase its installed electrical power, and at the same time reduce its dependence on electricity imports from the neighboring Republic of Côte d’Ivoire.
“The EIB has been an essential partner of this West African country for more than 5 decades,” said Lassané Kaboré, the Burkina Minister of the Economy, Finance, and Development when signing the loan agreement.
“The new agreements signed on this day will strengthen the production of electricity from renewable energies,” he concluded.
