By Isatou Jawara
Pirector of Environment and Sustainable Development for Gambia River Basin Development Organisation (OMVG), Demba Jallow has revealed that the Sambangalo Dam in Senegal is under construction and will hopefully be launched before the end of 2022.
The Sambangalo Dam project is a World Bank-funded sub-regional electricity dam project (OMVG), which is supplying electricity to The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea and Guinea Bissau.
Mr. Jallow made these remarks during an exclusive interview with Gambia Daily on the ongoing sub-regional ECOWAS WAPP Meeting hosted by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
The OMVG energy project developed the Sambangalou dam site to improve electricity access and provide affordable renewable energy within OMVG’s member states.
According to a publication by the International Journal on Hydropower and Dams dated 17th February 2021, the project is worth over €388 million which is equivalent to twenty-three billion two hundred and eighty million dalasis (D23,280,000,000) at a standard rate of D60 per Euro.
The report further highlights that the Sambangalou project which is to be located 930 km upstream from the mouth of The River Gambia will feature a 91 m-high gravity dam, which will impound a 3.8 km reservoir spanning the territories of Senegal and Guinea.
Mr. Jallow said that the dam project is currently in progress with an installed capacity of 128 MWp. He went further to say that “works on this Dam is expected to be launched before the end of 2022”.
“We are pleased to inform you that in addition to the energy and second-generation projects, OMVG is in an advanced stage of preparing a multi-sectoral integrated Masterplan which will go a long way in complementing the ongoing initiatives,’’ he said.
Mr. Jallow further urged electricity companies in member states to fasten their belt in connecting neighborhoods close to the OMVG substations through the support of the World Bank and African Development Bank to increase access to electricity in the sub region.
Also speaking to The Gambia Daily, the WAPP Secretary General,Siengui Aki explained that the growing demand for electricity in ECOWAS countries, the decision has been made by the countries to establish a Regional Electricity Market which is expected to start soon thus contributing towards achieving regional integration.
He added that the project has been identified in the ECOWAS Master Plan for the Development of Regional Power Generation and Transmission Infrastructure (2019-2033) approved in December 2018 by the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government.
As part of the Utility Scale Renewal Energy Projects in the Ecowas master plan, a 150 MWp solar PV plant with a large-scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) has been identified to be developed in The Gambia with a “plug and play” concept.
WAPP Secretary General revealed that the “Plug and Play” concept is a proven approach to mitigating development risks for potential independent power producers (IPPs) and this encourages them to offer competitive prices for project implementation.
“To do this, host countries must play an important role in identifying sites based on grid capacity, solar irradiance, the possibility of securing land, grid connection facilities, and the availability of site access infrastructure,’’ he stated.
