AfDB grants loan to Djermaya solar-plus-storage project in Chad

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a EUR-18-million (USD 19.7m) loan and a Partial Risk Guarantee (PRG), the lender’s safeguard instrument, to support the 32-MWp Djermaya solar-plus-storage project in Chad.

Djermaya is the first electricity sector project in Chad to be delivered by a public-private partnership (PPP), the AfDB said Tuesday. The project developers are Aldwych Africa Developments Ltd and Paris-based independent power producer (IPP) Smart Energies in a consortium, with investment company InfraCo Africa Ltd as a shareholder in the Djermaya scheme.

The government of Chad is represented by local power utility La Societe Nationale d’Electricite (SNE), the energy ministry, the finance ministry and the renewable energy agency ADER - Tchad.

According to Smart Energies, the project will be built in two phases of which the 32-MWp portion is the first. The second phase will involve of 28 MWp of added capacity.

Last year, the developers secured a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the energy ministry and the SNE for the total of 60 MWp.

The project site is located 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) north of Chad’s capital city N’Djamena. Construction will involve setting up overhead transmission lines, two transformers and a battery system that can hold 4 MWh of storage.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.09)

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