Mali and Russia launched the construction of West Africa’s largest solar power plant on Friday, announced Malian Energy Minister Bintou Camara on national television.
This initiative addresses Mali’s chronic electricity supply issues, with only half of the population currently having access to electricity.
“The power station, the largest in the country and even the sub-region, will significantly reduce the electricity shortage affecting our country,” Camara told the Malian TV station ORTM.
Grigory Nazarov, director of Novawind, the Russian company overseeing the construction, stated that the plant is expected to boost Mali’s electricity production by 10 percent. Novawind is a subsidiary of Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom.
The 200-megawatt solar station will span 314 hectares in Sanankoroba, near the capital Bamako. The project, costing over 200 million euros ($217 million), is slated for completion within a year, Nazarov said.
Designed for a “stable operation for 20 years,” the plant will come “under full control of the Malian Ministry of Energy” after 10 years, he added.
Malian electricity production is currently 70 percent thermal, which is extremely costly. In March, Finance Minister Alousseni Sanou highlighted these costs when the deal with Novawind was signed.
Mali’s national energy company, burdened with a debt exceeding $330 million, struggles to supply electricity to the capital and other towns.
Additionally, construction of two more solar plants near Bamako is set to begin on May 28 and June 1, to be built by Chinese and Emirati companies.
Russia’s influence in Mali has grown steadily through the deployment of Wagner group mercenaries, unofficially advancing the Kremlin’s interests in resource-rich Africa since the 2010s.
In a call in March, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Malian junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita discussed enhancing “cooperation in energy, agricultural, and mining projects,” according to the Kremlin.
