The Government of Côte d’Ivoire has committed to achieving universal access to energy by 2030, with renewable energy accounting for 45 per cent of the country’s total energy consumption.
In Côte d’Ivoire, new solar projects are being announced with contracts signed, according to Mr. Ahmadou Bakayoko, CEO of the Ivorian Electricity Company (CIE).
He added that the contracts should enable Côte d’Ivoire to move from around 30 per cent renewable energy to 45 per cent by 2030.
The Ivorian Electricity Company (CIE) operates the electricity grid in Côte d’Ivoire. To present its innovations, it is present at the International Exhibition of Extractive and Energy Resources (SIREXE), the first edition of which is being held in Abidjan, from November 27 to December 2, 2024.
This participation in SIREXE 2024 “allows us to show professionals everything we have been able to do, but also to meet experts who can provide us with their expertise in specific professions,” Mr. Ahmadou Bakayoko indicated.
“Today, we are roughly at 70 per cent fossil fuels and about 30 per cent renewable energies” in the electricity mix, he noted in an interview, recalling that the Ivorian State “has given a direction to go to 45 per cent by 2030.”
On the commercial side, he mentioned that for several years, the company has been implementing smart meters and “the access rate of these meters, today, is more than 85 per cent of smart meters” across the country.
“This allows us, tomorrow, to deploy new services and to know what is happening at home, what is happening in terms of consumption, not every two months or at the end of your bill, but perhaps every day, every hour,” he added.
Subscribers will thus have the ability to see what is happening at home, he assured, announcing that test systems will be deployed “in the coming months,” allowing to know “between an air conditioner, your television, your sockets, your refrigerators, what are the sources of consumption.”
And this, “so that you can yourself, possibly, modify the way in which these devices work like the temperature, the air conditioner in the room (in order to) control your consumption,” he explained.
“It is around these elements that we will deploy new technologies to facilitate the consumption” of electricity in the country, where there are “more than 500,000 new customers per year,” Ahmadou Bakayoko said.
In terms of innovation, he stated that “the CIE is one of the players in the region that is making more efforts to improve the supply to customers,” noting that concerning “voluntarism, there are few countries in the region that connect so much” to the electricity grid.
Faced with the challenges of the electricity coverage rate estimated at more than 95 per cent and climate change, he stressed that “the government is working to change things and we are in the process of renewing the network to have cable sections in order to transmit more energy.”
“We are all concerned by climate change,” Mr. Ahmadou Bakayoko said. He recalled that “Africa is one of the areas most affected by climate risks with 4 per cent of CO2 emissions, but 25 per cent of climate risks are on the African coasts.”
With its subsidiaries such as CIE, CIPREL, Atinkou and Smart Energy, the pan-African industrial group Eranove, specializing in the management of public services and the production of electricity and water, is positioning itself as an exhibitor of avant-garde solutions at the heart of SIREXE.
For the 2024 edition, SIREXE, a biennial event, has the theme “Sustainable development of extractive and energy industries: What policies and strategies.” It registers more than 300 exhibitors and more than 1,500 professional delegates from over 50 countries around the world.
AP/Sf/fss/gik/APA