An ambitious plan to interconnect power facilities in the wider
East Africa region to facilitate electricity trade continues to be a
dream, 15 years after it was mooted.
The Eastern Africa
Power Pool (EAPP) was conceived based on the need for optimum
development of energy resources to accelerate access to reliable and
affordable electricity across borders of 10 countries.
Ethiopia
has been the key proponent of the regional power pool as it pushes its
plan to become a net exporter of electricity, due to its massive
investment in generation capacity. The country has signed power-purchase
agreements with Kenya, Sudan and Djibouti.
With EAPP
member countries concentrating on investing in domestic power
infrastructure, particularly committing resources on domestic
transmission and distribution lines, a majority of the EAPP high-voltage
projects have been sidelined.
Experts say that weighty
issues at play in the complex nature of implementing, including massive
resources required, putting in place a tight legal and regulatory
framework, designing a regional power trade market to building a
consensus on an independent regulator are some of the factors that have
slowed down the implementation of the projects.
Governments
are unable or unwilling to allocate funds to the regional projects,
forcing implementation to be solely dependent on bilateral and
multilateral agencies for funding.
While the majority of the projects were initially designed for
completion this year, challenges facing them have precipitated the
deferment of implementation to 2025, under the revised EAPP Masterplan.
Currently,
only two of the nine regional interconnectors have made significant
progress in terms of implementation, with the $1.2 billion
Ethiopia-Kenya interconnector, funded by the African Development Bank
and the World Bank, slated for completion this year.
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