São Paulo – The government of Somalia launched on Wednesday (26) the National Electricity Recovery Project with the World Bank financial and technical support. State news agency Sonna reported this is the country’s first energy infrastructure investment program.
Somalia’s prime minister Hamza Abdi Barre participated in the launching ceremony in the capital Mogadishu. He said access to affordable, reliable and clean energy for all Somali households is one of key priorities of the government. The program will be fulfilled by Somalia’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources.
The project aims to increase access to lower cost electricity supply from diverse energy resources especially from renewable energy resources for climate change mitigation. Its vision has four themes: infrastructure development, renewable energy generation, electricity supply to public institutions, and sector capacity enhancement by enabling environment for sustained sector operations, including enhancing both the public and private capacity to manage and operate the sector.
According to the text of the project, the most significant energy resource currently used in Somalia is biomass, followed by petroleum fuels. Estimates of the energy needs met through traditional biomass fuels, wood and charcoal vary between 80% and 90% over the whole country. Petroleum products account for about 10% of total energy use.
The text of the project affirms that Somalia has no national electricity grid infrastructure. Pre-conflict, the Somalia National Electric Corporation was the single public utility in operation, supplying Mogadishu and the main regional centers through distributed diesel generators. The municipalities were responsible for the electricity supply to the remaining regional centers
This limited and localized public electricity infrastructure was destroyed during the conflict, with Somalia National Electric Corporation currently only operating 12 MW installed capacity through a quasi-public private partnership. Private sector players are the main electricity services providers in Somalia using local private mini grids.
The project launched, however, provides for the sub-transmission and distribution network reconstruction, as well as reinforcement and operations efficiency, which will receive a USD 75 million investment. Other USD 20 million will be used to support hybridization and battery storage systems for mini-grids. The implementation of solar off-grid access to public health and education institutions will receive USD 40 million.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
