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Ghana to Host Next ERERA Electricity Regulatory Forum

by on 22 December 2016in upcoming events No comment

Ghana will host the sixth edition of ERERA’s Electricity Regulatory Forum which is scheduled to take place in November 2017.

This is according to a consensus agreed by participants at the 5th Regulatory Forum which was held on Wednesday, 16th November 2016 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Ghana’s hosting of the event next year will be the second time that the Forum will be held in the country.

In 2011, ERERA launched the maiden edition in Accra, after which Member States were invited to host subsequent editions. Cote d’Ivoire (2011), Senegal (2012) and The Gambia (2013) had previously hosted the Forum before the baton was passed on to Burkina Faso.

Like the 5th Regulatory Forum in Ouagadougou, it is expected that the 6th Forum will seek to encourage participants to consider and discuss issues with institutional, technological, environmental and financial implications, but related to a successful energy transition in West Africa.

With preparations in top gear for the launch of the regional electricity market, participants at the 6th Forum may also be expected to help define a strategy and policy for restructuring national electricity markets as a means of developing the unified regional market and facilitating electricity trade within ECOWAS.

In addition, they will explore modalities for financing energy infrastructure in order to increase the availability of electricity; as well as consider governance issues and regulatory best practices.

At the Ouagadougou Forum, participants were treated to presentations in four sessions dealing with the harmonization of national policies and rules for the establishment of the regional electricity market, regulatory governance, development of energy infrastructure as well as innovative solutions to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Representatives of the Ministries of Energy, National Regulatory Authorities, power generation, transmission and distribution operators in ECOWAS Member States attended the 5th Forum.

In addition were representatives of the West African Power Pool (WAPP), the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE), technical and financial partners.

Mauritania was represented by delegates from the Ministry of Energy and the national electricity regulatory authority of Mauritania (ARE).

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ERERA-WAPP Technical Working Group Meeting

by on 8 December 2016in upcoming events No comment

In recognition of the complementary roles of ERERA and WAPP secretariat in the implementation of the roadmap for the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Market, the two institutions have established a technical working group which has been continually operational since 2015.

The next meeting of the working group is tentatively planned to hold in January 2017. The purpose of the meeting is to follow up on the implementation of requisite conditions for Market Phase 1 and to take necessary actions in order to meet the deadline of first quarter of 2017 envisaged for the launching of the Phase 1 of the Regional Electricity Market.

9th ERERA Consultative Committee Meeting

by on 8 December 2016in upcoming events No comment

Within the framework of the establishment and development of the regional electricity market, ERERA intends to organize the 9th meeting of its Consultative Committees of Regulators and Operators in Accra, Ghana in March or April 2017. The meeting will consider, among others, the final review of the regional electricity market Procedures rules and the launching of working groups activities for 2017.

West African Electricity Regulators, Operators, Others to Converge in Ouagadougou

by on 7 November 2016in upcoming events No comment

Major players in the electricity sector in ECOWAS Member States, including regulators, operators, and representatives of the Ministries of Energy and their counterparts from the Finance Ministries, will meet in Ouagadougou, the Burkinabe capital, to push forward the agenda of the soon-to-be-launched Regional Electricity Market.

They will be meeting on 16th November 2016 at the 5th Electricity Regulatory Forum organized by ERERA in collaboration with the national electricity regulator of Burkina Faso (ARSE) under the theme “Realizing the ECOWAS regional electricity market: Opportunities and Challenges.”

The forum “will afford us an opportunity to focus on the numerous electricity-related issues facing our region. We have huge but unevenly spread potentials, and we have to be smart”, said ERERA’s Chairman, Professor Honoré Bogler.

“Several years ago, our Heads of State determined that the region should pool resources and exploit and distribute them for the benefit of our peoples”, he stated.

Professor Bogler said electricity regulation remains largely unknown to the people and authorities in West Africa. He therefore expressed the hope that the forum would enable regulators to convince policy makers that electricity regulation is the best way to addressing many of the power challenges in Africa.

Part of ERERA’s mandate is to assist ECOWAS Member States without national electricity regulators to set up their own and contribute meaningfully to the development of the region.

The 5th Forum will be preceded by a two-day meeting of ERERA’s Consultative Committees of Regulators and Operators, also in Ouagadougou.

Participants at this consultative committee meeting will review the Regional Electricity Market Procedures rules, ERERA Rules of Practice and Procedure and will be presented the final draft of the Model Bilateral Contracts for the Regional Electricity Market.