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Energy minister Dona Jean-Claude Houssou has signed a 20-year concession agreement with a consortium of GreenYellow and Egnon Consulting for the Parakou, Djogou, Bohicon and Natitingou solar projects.

The Rockefeller Foundations’ Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet has committed $50m to the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All)’s Universal Energy Facility (UEF).

Dutch cooperative and social investor Oikocredit will invest $1.5m to boost energy access in rural communities.

Benin’s dependence on expensive thermal capacity is not the only costly drain on electricity provision: transmission and distribution (T&D) losses have been running at a level of 30%, which has clear cost implications for state utility Société Béninoise d’Energie Electrique (SBEE). This problem is being addressed by the construction of a substantial amount of infrastructure, some now ready for commissioning.

An off-grid electricity access project promoted under the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s Benin Power Compact is making significant progress. Agreements with five concessionaires will come into force within months and further agreements are under negotiation.  

SBEE’s Defissol solar PV plant is expected to start commercial operations in June and will be the country’s first utility-scale solar plant to be commissioned, a decade after plans to develop such projects were first announced. 

The Millennium Challenge Corporation’s $391m Benin Power Compact has delivered significant reforms to sector regulation and Benin’s transmission and distribution network since the US government-funded facility came into force in 2017. On-grid and off-grid solar PV schemes are expected to be agreed in the near future, which project sources believe will radically alter Benin’s generation mix, reduce the cost of electricity and raise access levels, while also encouraging further private sector involvement, writes Marc Howard

Support from the Millennium Challenge Corporation may finally be overcoming decades of incoherent policy choices and other problems caused by corruption and waste.  One instructive case is the 80MW Maria Gléta I dual-fuel thermal plant, commissioned in late 2013.

Investment fund manager Amethis has sold its 22% minority stake in Burkina Faso’s leading liquid petroleum gas (LPG) bottle distributor, Sodigaz APC, to African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM). Sodigaz claims a market share exceeding 60% and distribution network of 2,200 gas resellers. 

Société Nationale de Commercialisation des Produits Pétroliers (Sonacop)’s retail units have been part-privatised, while its remaining assets will be transferred to other functioning state entities or sold, as the long-troubled products distributor and service station operator is effectively liquidated.

The World Bank Group (WBG) board of directors on 14 June approved a €165.6m ($200m) International Development Association facility for the Benin Electricity Access Scale-Up Project. Most of the funds, around $183m, will be used to provide grid connections to households and businesses within 7km of the existing grid.

The Chinese-owned West African Oil Pipeline Benin Company (Wapco Benin) and the government in Cotonou have announced a construction start for the delayed Niger-Benin Export Pipeline (NBEP), which the partners said had been held up for months by the coronavirus pandemic. The 1,982km, 20-inch diameter pipeline will carry crude from the Agadem Rift Basin (ARB) fields in Niger to Benin’s Atlantic oil terminal in Sèmè-Kraké port.

Vinci Energies has signed a contract worth €292m ($353m) with the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministry of Energy to build transmission and distribution infrastructure across eight of Benin’s 12 départements.

The government has approved the creation of a state-owned power producer to support its efforts to make Benin self-sufficient in electricity supply. At a meeting on 2 December, the Council of Ministers, chaired by President Patrice Talon, established the Société Béninoise de Production d’Electricité (SBPE) and approved its statutes.

Tender for Maria Gléta CCGT The Ministry of Energy has invited bids by 28 December for the next phase of the Maria Gléta thermal power complex. The tender involves the design, supply and construction of a 143MW dual-fuel combined-cycle thermal power plant.