By TRTWORLD
The wind farm will supply nearly a sixth of the country’s power when it reaches full capacity later this year, helping Senegal meet 30 percent energy needs from renewable sources.
Senegal has launched the first large-scale wind farm in West Africa, a facility that will supply nearly a sixth of the country’s power when it reaches full capacity later this year.
With the wind farm, Senegal will get 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources, which has been a goal of President Macky Sall.
“The energy mix we have today allows us to move past our dependence on petrol,” said Papa Mademba Biteye, director general of Senelec, the national electricity company, at an inauguration ceremony in rural Taiba N’Diaye on Monday.
The 158-megawatt wind farm was built by British renewable power company Lekela, which also has wind farms in South Africa and Egypt and an upcoming one in Ghana.
Senegal’s solar and wind farms
Wind farms remain scarce throughout sub-Saharan Africa compared with solar plants, partly because they can cost more and take longer to build and because strong wind is generally less plentiful than sunshine, said Silvia Macri, an energy analyst at IHS Markit.
“Senegal pushed ahead its renewables agenda quite aggressively,” Macri told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Read more…
