French contractor Eiffage on 15 October announced it was making the final adjustments on Cote d’Ivoire’s 44MW Singrobo-Ahouaty hydropower project, located 150km north of the capital city Abidjan on the Bandama River.

Eiffage Civil Engineering started construction on the scheme in 2020 under a design-build contract with Eiffage subsidiary RMT for the developer Ivoire Hydro Energy (IHE). The plant is set to produce 217GWh a year, supplying 100,000 households.

The Singrobo-Ahouaty project is being built 23km downstream of the existing Taabo dam and includes the construction of a 1,400-metre-long dam with a reservoir capacity of 110 million cubic metres, a 4km access road and a 3.5km transmission line and substation to connect to the national 90kV Taabo-Agboville transmission line.

Eiffage said the completed installations include the tailrace and drainage canal; water intakes; the spillway, which consists of three gates that are 11 metres wide each, with a total capacity of 2,745 cubic metres a second; and the substation and power line.

The firm said work is ongoing on the assembly of the 22MW horizontal-axis Kaplan turbines.

The total project cost is estimated at €173 million (US$187.9 million), excluding the cost of the ancillary infrastructures, which is estimated at €30.4 million (US$33 million). The African Development Bank (AfDB) is co-financing the project along with the German Investment Corporation (DEG) and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF).

In December 2022, the Singrobo-Ahouaty hydro scheme became the first privately financed independent hydropower and climate action investment project to reach financial close in West Africa, according to IHE.

The developer signed the scheme's concession and power purchase agreements in 2013.

The project’s initial sponsors were IHE, the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and Morocco-based Themis, an Africa-focused energy project developer.

Themis subsequently partnered with private equity fund Denham Capital, which invested in the scheme through DIPF Singrobo Holdings (DIPF). IHE is 51% owned by the local IHE Holding, 27% by DIPF and 22% by AFC.

Cote d’Ivoire’s current generation capacity is about 2,200MW. The government is looking to increase this to about 6,000MW by 2030 to meet demand, which is expected to grow by 8-9% a year, as well as equip the country to play a central role as a net exporter to the West African Power Pool (WAPP).

Photo: Singrobo-Ahouaty hydro project (Source: Eiffage)