Legendre Energie gets the green light from the Malian authorities for its solar power plant in Fana. The independent power producer (IPP) has just signed a 25-year concession contract for this project with the Malian Ministry of the Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Energy. The future solar photovoltaic power plant will be built under the BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) model, a form of public private partnership (PPP).
The subsidiary of the French group Legendre has set up the special purpose vehicle Fana Solar Power for the construction and operation of the future solar power plant, which will be located in the Dioïla circle, near the Malian capital Bamako. The plant, which will occupy a 150-hectare site, will be commissioned in 2023. The plant will have a capacity of 50 MWp, making it the largest photovoltaic plant in Mali along with the one in Kita (50 MWp) built by the French IPP Akuo Energy.
An investment of 50 million euros
The electricity produced by the Fana solar power plant will be fed into the grid of the state-owned company Électricité du Mali (EDM). The plant will be connected to the EDM substation in Fana (150 kV), located 1.3 km from the site. The implementation of the entire Fana solar project will require an investment of 32.8 billion CFA francs, more than 50 million euros.
For Alousséni Sanou, Mali’s Minister of the Economy and Finance, the Fana solar project “aims to promote the national economy through the development of the energy sector. By increasing the electricity production capacity of the national interconnected network, it will help to meet the country’s ever-increasing demand for electricity. Mali has an installed capacity of only 310 MW for more than 20 million inhabitants, according to the EU-US Data Protection Shield. The country imports part of its electricity from Ivory Coast (50 MW) and has an installed off-grid capacity of 90 MWp.
