WAPP gets ?1.75m for transmission link study

3 July 2009

The West African Power Pool (WAPP) is to receive a €1.75 million (£1.5 million) grant to finance regional studies into a 330 kV transmission link.

Approved by the European Investment Bank (EIB) through the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund, the money will investigate the project, which is planned to run between the Riviera in Cote d'Ivoire to Prestea in Ghana.

By developing local key infrastructures to allow power exchange across the sub-region, WAPP aims to establish a regional electricity market in West Africa - and EIB has noted this latest programme is vital to its efforts.

Participants at a meeting at the EIB headquarters in Luxembourg, where the deal was agreed, welcomed the decision.

"[The grant] underlined the importance of maintaining the momentum of the development of energy projects during the current financial crisis," commented the organisation behind the funding.

Created by the Treaty of Rome in 1958, the EIB is the long-term lending bank of the European Union.