ACCRA, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The launching of the second phase of the West African regional power market will drive down the cost of energy for the development of member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a senior official told Xinhua.
Honore Bogler, the chairman of the Regulatory Council of the Accra-based ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA), said there is the need to produce power at a lower cost to boost economic activities and meet individual needs.
"The main objective we have for the market we are setting is to produce electricity that is cheaper for the good of ECOWAS and its citizens," Bogler told Xinhua.
To achieve this, he said ERERA is putting in steps to ensure that investors would be attracted into the regional power market to produce power at a lower cost to serve these needs in the sub-region.
"The first thing investors will be happy to know is that in the region, there will be a solid framework that allows them to invest. This framework will set rules that will bring free competition among themselves. So only the very efficient will win," he said.
"The rules we are setting will also help them get revenues and returns on their investments. So we are working to bring more investors, to give them the assurance that they will invest and gain. They will be fully recovered from the investments and then have returns on the investment," added the official.
The regional regulatory body is also strengthening the capacity of the various national regulatory institutions, such that their work would be in tandem with the harmonized standards and rules set at the regional market level, he said.
"And when investors invest in any of the ERERA member countries, we will make sure that even at the national level, regulators are empowered to take care of the situation and give investors their rights to generate power at an affordable cost to consumers," said Bogler.
The official believed that the new rules would help the countries in the ECOWAS sub-region to overcome the "burden of the past" where Power Purchase Agreements imposed heavy cost burdens on the countries, industries, and the individual consumers.
"Once the market comes on stream, I do not see any country trying to get electricity produced above the regulated price because there will be real competition and all the countries will take advantage of the best overall price, so progressively we will come to the right prices and the consumers will gain out of that," he said. Enditem
