Adamaoua: over 1,500 new households gain access to electricity

The French company IED Invest will build a mini-hydroelectric power plant with a capacity of 1.4 MW expandable to 2.8 MW in the town of Mbakaou, which is already home to the dam of the same name in the Northern region of Adamaoua, in Cameroon.

The news was revealed on 6 December 2016 in Yaoundé, the capital of the country. This was during the signature of an energy purchase contract between this company specialised in the development, financing and operation of small electricity production projects through renewable energy and the company Eneo, concessionaire of the public electricity service in Cameroon.

The mini-hydroelectric plant of Mbakaou, which will be the very first infrastructure of this kind sponsored by an independent producer, is scheduled to be commissioned in October 2018. It will enable 1,500 households established in eight villages in the Adamaoua region to gain access to electricity for the first time, we officially learned.

As it happens, the company Eneo specifies, “in addition to improving the supply and quality of service in these rural areas, the project will generate reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases by 2,893 tons of CO2 per year, due to the partial or total shutdowns of thermal plants in Tibati and Mbakaou, which are currently the main sources of supply in the area”.

With an average annual production capacity of 10.9 GWh, this mini-hydroelectric plant will cost 5.5 million Euros, approximately FCfa 3.6 billion based on official estimates.