The commissioning of the Nachtigal hydroelectric dam marks a significant milestone in the country’s national development strategy for 2030. Its aim is to increase the country’s installed capacity from 2000 to 5000 MW by 2030.
On Friday 10 May, Cameroon’s Minister of Energy, Gaston Essomba (far right in photo), officially launched the injection of the first 60 megawatts into the electricity distribution networks of the Nachtigal hydroelectric power station. The plant, with a total capacity of 420 MW, should be fully operational by December this year.
The plan aims to add an additional 60 MW to the Southern Interconnected Grid every month until reaching the project’s planned capacity. Once achieving this milestone, Nachtigal will emerge as the country’s most powerful power station.
The Southern Interconnected Grid comprises seven regions: Centre, South, Littoral, East, West, Northwest, and Southwest.
“The completion and commercial operation of this plant in 2024 will significantly increase the supply of electricity in the national electricity system, resulting in an improvement in the quality of electricity supply to industries and households,” said the minister during his inaugural speech. The Cameroonian authorities’ ambition is primarily to facilitate access to energy for the industrial sector, whose needs are constantly growing.
While reaching this milestone is crucial in efforts to ensure electricity access for all, this increase in installed capacity will not solve the challenge of power outages in the country. Indeed, existing transport and distribution capacities remain low, mainly due to the aging distribution infrastructure.
Furthermore, the company responsible for electricity transmission (SONATREL) has fallen behind in providing transport capacities, and it’s uncertain whether the analysis of electricity consumption patterns has remained the same.
Gaston Essomba highlighted that Nachtigal’s actual electricity consumption depends on increasing network capacities and transformer capacities, leading to an improvement in the quality of electricity supply to industries and households.
The challenges related to electricity transmission are such that the Rural Electrification Master Plan (PDER in french) anticipates that without significant investments in the coming years, electricity access will remain low in the country, despite ongoing infrastructure developments in the energy sector.
Other constraints also exist regarding the replacement of metering units to reduce fraud and increase collections from customers.