SENEGAL: SAVE OUR SOLAR

It is a crime to let these programs fail, especially for these reasons.

Senegal: Ambitious Solar Power Project Threatened By Mismanagement
Mar Lodj, 27 June 2007, (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks via AllAfrica)

WHO
Senegal, Solar Electric Light Fund -- US non-governmental organisation (NGO), Bob Freling, executive director; Abdou Diouf, chief, Mar Lodj; Mamadou Tidian, Mar Lodj resident; Matforce, Senagalese contractor, Mohammed Diop, project manager; Equiplus, 2nd Senegalese contractor;
Senegal, Dakar to the north, the Delta where the river meets the Atlantic (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Solar systems serving 170, 000 people, 10,000 homes, are failing due to an inadequate plan, poor maintenance and the inability or disinclination of people to pay.

WHEN
Project begun in 2000.

WHERE
Sine Saloum Delta, remote islands and inlets of Senegal south of Dakar, near The Gambia.

WHY
- Only 30% of homeowners are currently paying. Many complain the charges are too high.
- Installed via Japanese and Spanish loans and grants for clean, low-cost electricity to off-grid rurals. It is the best and only solution to getting electricity to them.
- Mar Lodj village got the 1st 100 systems. Has 7 solar powered grinding mills. Also school, helath clinic, home and guest lodge lighting.
- One panel, wiring, battery and installation: US$500 each. Maintence is easy in western terms but not in Senegal. Parts and batteries are not being replaced.
- Matforce, Senegalese contractor, failed to follow with maintence and training local technicians. Equiplus, the 2nd contractor, cannot get paid by poor locals.
- 85% of 7 million rural Senegalese lack electricity. Over 500 million people sub-Saharan Africans lack electricity.
a Senegal village (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Maintenance company technician unwilling to be named: "The problem has become a vicious circle…We don't have the capacity or funds to change all the old batteries and keep all the parts in working order. If we can't keep up the maintenance, the systems will become less and less effective and fewer users will pay the fees we rely on to maintain the systems in the first place….They are supposed to pay 3,750 CFA [about US$7.50] a month for upkeep. With that money I have to travel around the area to survey the systems, purchase and replace parts and also support myself…"
Mother of 6: "We're just subsisting here on fish and millet…It's too much to ask us to pay."
- Freling: "The outcome of the Sine Saloum project is terribly important…If projects like this run into sustainability problems there will be negative repercussions for a lot of industry players…What you'll get is an unnecessary lack of confidence in the most solid and viable solution for rural electrification…Unfortunately, the companies that install systems aren't always focused on capacity building. Sustainability depends on the care you take to train the local community."
- Abdou Diouf: "These systems are really helpful when they work. We have access to light, TV and radio…"
- Mamadou Tidian: "The mills help us do our work quickly. We can make more money this way…"
- Diop: "Matforce performed all necessary maintenance for the first four years until ASER [the Senegalese Agency for Rural Electrification] failed to renew our contract after 2005 and so we left."