Guinea Turns to Solar to Cut Energy Reliance on Neighbors

(Bloomberg) -- Guinea plans to build the country’s first solar power plants to increase its electricity production by 15% and cut its reliance on West African neighbors.

The construction of two 35-megawatt power plants and a 30-megawatt plant are underway in the gold-rich regions of Kankan and Siguiri, the energy ministry said in statement Friday.

Two additional 40-megawatt solar power plants are still being discussed, it said.

The solar projects would bring 180 megawatts of new capacity online in a country with a total installed generating capacity of just 1,200 megawatts in 2022, according to BloombergNEF data. Guinea imports about 130 megawatts of power from neighboring Senegal and Ivory Coast, but that’s insufficient to meet demand.

“The solar power plants will support sustainable development and strengthen our energy autonomy,” the ministry said, without specifying the project’s cost or source of funding.

Guinea vies with Australia as China’s largest supplier of bauxite, a reddish ore used to make aluminum. It also has the world’s largest untapped reserves of iron ore. Still, most of the nation lives in poverty, lacking access to electricity and other basic services. 

Miners from Rio Tinto Plc to Aluminum Corp of China Ltd run operations on their own power sources.

Friday’s announcement comes at a time when China has been stepping up renewable energy investments across Africa, pledging more than $1 billion toward wind and solar projects between 2015 and 2018 alone, according to a database by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.

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