ENERGY: Electricity Transforming Rural Senegal Into 21st Century

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Abdou Faye

DAKAR, Jul 3 2004 (IPS) - Large-scale electrification programmes are bringing Senegal’s interior villages into the 21st Century and creating a ”technological revolution”.

While much of the electrical generation has been created through the use of solar powers, the National Electricity Company of Senegal (SENELEC) has also lent its support, SENELEC technicians told IPS.

Senegal’s poor countryside has been transformed into one giant work area by power projects, which are run by the Senegalese Agency for Rural Electrification (ASER), a government outfit formed in 2001. Workers are everywhere, putting up solar panels and poles to connect to the grid.

The project aims to raise the percentage of Senegal’s 324 rural counties with electricity from nine to 15 percent by 2005, and at least 60 percent in 20 years.

Low usage among villagers, coupled with high costs, has delayed the advent of electricity to Senegal’s countryside. The problem has further been compounded by the fact that households in rural areas tend to be scattered.

Recent statistics published by the ministry of energy and mines show that in 2000, 56 percent of Senegal’s estimated 9,524,089 people were scattered among 13,263 villages. More than 2,048,000 (or 38 percent of the rural population) live in villages with populations greater than 1,000. There are 6,500 villages with fewer than 250 inhabitants.

In 2001, fewer than five percent of villages with populations under 250 were electrified. ‘’We’ve increased that figure to nine percent in the last four years. And we expect to get 30 new villages each year on line with the help of SENELEC. Also, ASER wants to try out a hybrid system using small generators as well as solar power,’’ says Madicke Niang, the minister of energy and mines.

In 2001, only 7.4 percent of rural households in Senegal had access to electricity, while the figure for city dwellers was 55 percent, according to official statistics.

People in the countryside are delighted by the advent of electricity, which is needed for lighting as well as for educational, irrigation and conservation purposes.

At a recent meeting in the capital Dakar to evaluate the programme, Ibrahima Diouf from the village of Maka Bira Gueye in the northern region of Louga, noted the improvement electricity has made in everyday life for the villagers. ‘’Electricity has shaken up how we live in the village,’’ he told IPS.‘’Now we can linger outdoors later, without having to worry about being bitten by snakes or other dangerous creatures.’’

‘’Television has become the centre of attraction in our village thanks to electricity, especially for our youth. In the past, they used to walk great distances each night if they wanted to follow their favorite programme in villages already electrified on main roads,’’ Diouf said.

Another participant at the meeting, Bintou Sarr, who lives in a remote village on the border with The Gambia, told how pleased people were with their solar powers.

‘’Today, people in my village still refuse to believe that they can have electricity all day, and they can use as much as they want for their needs,’’ Sarr, a senior citizen, said. ‘’Since the beginning of the year, I can send fish to my family, knowing it will remain fresh for days.’’

To set up the programme, the government divided up the country into 18 electrification zones and solicited proposals from both the domestic and foreign private sector, the best of which were awarded concessions.

Each concession is run by an operator who is required to provide either solar or diesel-generated electricity for its area. It can also connect consumers to the SENELEC grid in a bid to increase the number of its customers.

Concessions are either urban or rural and have distinct boundaries. Rural concessions are awarded based on the number of localities the operator commits to electrifying according to a predefined programme. All operators have the exclusive right to provide electricity within the borders of their concessions for the length of their contracts.

The goals and outline of ASER’s rural electrification by concession policy come from the fact that only 600 of Senegal’s 13,263 villages have access to electricity.

Two Spanish companies – ISOFOTON and ATERSA – are already investing, around 25 million dollars, in Senegal’s rural electrification programme.

They are installing solar generators on about a dozen Saloum River islands, as well as 2,648 streetlights in 227 localities, in central Senegal.

The companies have increased their generator installation rate from 500 to 800 units a month, which means that waiting time, formerly estimated at 20 months, is down to only about 15.

To receive a solar panel, an applicant pays a fee of 20,000 francs (about 38 dollars). After a two or three month moratorium, the owner then pays a monthly fee based on the amount of electricity used.

The price of the solal panel unit was set low so that the greatest number of rural people could benefit, authorities say.

According to the UN Development Programme’s 2003 Report on Human Development, 65 percent of Senegal’s population lives below the poverty line on less than one dollar per day.