Ivory Coast Achieves 94% Energy Coverage Of Its National Territory

Côte d’Ivoire currently has one of the best renewable energy production capacities in Africa according to recent reports.

In order to achieve this stature, the West African country chose to privatise the renewable energy sector in 1993. More than 25 years later, Côte d’Ivoire has achieved 94% coverage of its national territory and aims to cover 99% of its population by 2035 and produce 42% of renewable energy.

In response to pertinent questions on the subject, Mr Ahmadou Bakayoko, Director-General of the Ivorian Electricity Company (Compagnie Ivoirienne d’Electricité) in an interview with Africa News said the success rate could be attributed to two main reasons.

The first is that an institutional framework with a balanced distribution of actors between a state company called Côte d’Ivoire Energie which is in charge of investment in the network and a private sector with the Compagnie Ivoirienne d’Électricité in charge of operating the network.

“Côte d’Ivoire Energie has set up a rural electrification programme and thanks to this programme we have gone from 2,000 localities to just over 6,000 localities at a rate of 2,000 per year. We have set up an access programme at the level of the EC in consultation with you — which allows you to start accessing electricity from just 1000 francs, and then the person will pay for it over several years through deductions,” he said.

While speaking on the issue of billing, Bakayoko said there are two elements in a bill: the price of the kilowatt-hour and the quantity of energy you consume.

“These two elements make up your bill if you look at the price today, we have the most competitive price per kilowatt-hour in the sub-region. We are at 60 francs for most consumers, so we are rather in the low price per account category.

“The second element — which is a great challenge, is that a certain number of people are equipped with equipment that does not have a great energy efficiency for a long time. In our country, there was no obligation to indicate the efficiency of the equipment. If you go to other countries there is a category ABCDE. Thus, somewhere according to the type of energy efficiency which you take at the level of your air-conditioner, of your TV, of your freezer — and well for the same use, your invoice can vary from 30, 40%.”

He added that the company would help the populations to manage their consumption.

“There are laws that are arriving in Côte d’Ivoire which are going to make it compulsory to identify the level of consumption. Moreover, we are going to give them information on the evolution of their consumption — which is going to enable them to be able to follow this consumption and to better control it.”