TRANSCO CLSG, Donors visit Guinea’s biggest Hydro Projects

Conakry, Guinea, Wednesday, October 17, 2018: A high-level delegation headed by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of TRANSCO CLSG, Mr. Amidou Traore, and accompanied by the World Bank Task Team leader on the CLSG Project, Clemencia Torres, the Secretary General of the West Africa Power Pool (WAPP), Mr. Siengui Apollinaire KI and the General Manager of TRANSCO CLSG Mohammed M. Sherif, today (Wednesday, October 17, 2018) visited two of Guinea’s biggest hydro power projects situated northwest of the capital, Conakry.

Accompanying the Chairman were also TRANSCO CLSG’s Finance and Administration Manager, Josephus Jigba Yilla, the Director the Project Implementation Unit, Etienne Bailly, Country Managers – Abdoulaye Keita (Guinea), Paul Saffa (Sierra Leone) and Jerry Taylor (Liberia), Environmental Coordinator, Pakidame Kolani, Mohamed Keita, Procurement and Contract Management Specialist and Communication Officer Sidiki Trawally. The Social Safeguard Assistant at Guinea’s Country office, Pierre Bavogui, the Engineering Contractor, Baba Alimou Diallo and the Owner’s Engineer, TRACTEBEL also formed part of the delegation.

The team made the first stop at Souapiti, the country’s second hydropower project on the Konkoure river that is being construction. The Souapiti will have a capacity of 550megawatt that will double the west African country power output.

According to an on-site engineer, once operational, the project will meet power demands in Guinea, as well as supply additional power to neighboring countries such as Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Mali.

This would confirm the optimism of multilateral, bilateral and regional players who believe the West African electricity market can be overhauled with the implementation of long-mooted cross-border transmission schemes.

Critical to this are the several planned interconnection projects which are intended to improve regional electricity trade and domestic electrification. Chief among these are the Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Gambie (OMVG) and the Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (CLSG) interconnection projects.

The transmission links will connect Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal under the OMVG is expected to be completed in 2022 while the Côte d’Ivoire-Liberia-Sierra Leone-Guinea (CLSG) interconnection, identified as a top five priority project for the West African Power Pool (WAPP)’s development, is expected in 2020.

The Chairman and team visited the Kaleta Hydroelectric Power Plant Guinea located at Kaleta, Fria, Guinea. The Hydro Power Plant with a design capacity of 240 MWe was commissioned in 2015 and has since provided some optimism for the country’s quest to provide energy stability.

The Kaléta site is also located on the mouth of the Konkouré River. The project, which was previously part of the larger Gambia River Basin Development Organisation (OMVG) project involving the four countries, namely The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal was commissioned in 2015 by the state-owned utility company, Electricite de Guinee.