Ivory Coast signs power supply agreement with Guinea

ABIDJAN, Nov 30 -

Ivory Coast has signed a deal to export 11 megawatts (MW) of electricity to Guinea per year as its ramps up its generation capacity and strengthens its position as the regional power hub, the West African nation's energy minister said on Tuesday.
The deal will run from 2021 to 2023, said Ivory Coast's mines and energy minister, Thomas Camara, at a signing ceremony.

Ivory Coast, which is the world's top cocoa-producing nation and French-speaking West Africa's biggest economy, plans to increase its power generation capacity with the construction of a 200 MW gas-fired power plant.
With 2,230 MW of installed capacity, it already exports electricity to Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo and Mali.

The completion of a transmission line linking Sierra Leone and Liberia could also see power export deals with those countries, a source at the energy ministry said.
A prolonged dry season that reduced water levels at hydropower dams in May left the country with a generation shortfall that led to outages and reduced supplies to neighbouring countries.

(Reuters)