Mali and Russia on Friday launched the development of the biggest solar energy plant in West Africa, Malian Energy Minister Bintou Camara mentioned on nationwide tv.
This comes because the nation continues to be tormented by energy provide issues, with solely half the inhabitants getting access to electrical energy.
The energy station, “the primary [in terms of size] within the nation and even within the subregion … will significantly scale back the shortage of electrical energy that’s at present affecting our nation,” Camara informed Malian TV station ORTM.
Grigory Nazarov, director of NovaWind, the Russian firm managing the development, mentioned it’s anticipated to extend electrical energy manufacturing in Mali by 10%.
NovaWind is a subsidiary of the Russian nuclear company Rosatom.
The 200-megawatt photo voltaic station will cowl 314 hectares in Sanankoroba, in southwestern Mali, close to the capital, Bamako.
The work, which is price greater than 200 million euros ($217 million), will take a yr to finish, Nazarov mentioned.
The solar energy plant is designed for “steady operation for 20 years” and can come “beneath the total management of the Malian Ministry of Energy” after 10 years, he added.
Malian electrical energy manufacturing is 70% thermal, which may be very costly, Finance Minister Alousseni Sanou mentioned in March when the NovaWind deal was signed.
Burdened with a debt of greater than $330 million, Mali’s nationwide vitality firm can now not provide electrical energy to the capital and different cities throughout the nation.
The building of two extra photo voltaic vegetation close to Bamako is scheduled to start out on May 28 and June 1 and can be constructed by Chinese and Emirati firms.
Moscow continues to achieve affect in Mali by sending mercenaries to the Wagner Group, which has unofficially served the Kremlin’s targets in resource-rich Africa for the reason that 2010s.
During a name in March, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Malian junta chief Colonel Assimi Goita mentioned strengthening “cooperation in vitality, agriculture and mining initiatives,” the Kremlin mentioned .