(Business in Cameroon) - In the 2017 edition of its report focused on Cameroon, the African Development Bank welcomed the energy infrastructures the country has launched in the past 6 years.

According to the pan African finance institution, this year, 2.7 million residents would have an improved access to electricity thanks to the various dams and power plants constructed since 2012.  The most important of those infrastructures is the Lom Pangar dam (30MW). Even before its production plant is finalized, this dam, with a water storage capacity of 6 billion cubic meters, is already contributing to the regularization of the flow of Sanaga River (which concentrates 75% of Cameroon’s hydroelectric potential).

This regularization allows the construction of other energy infrastructures (such as the 400MW Nachtigal dam actually being elaborated) without additional investments and optimizes the production of the Song Loulou and Edea power plants.

After the Lom Pangar dam, Cameroon will build Memvé’élé dam (200 MW) and Mékin dam (15 MW), in the South. In the three Northern regions, apart from the 10MW plant recently commissioned, the 75MW Bini dam in Warak is being built. This dam will improve access to electricity in the Northern regions which concentrate one-third of the country’s population. Let’s remind that electricity in these regions was provided by a 35 years old plant in need of renovation.

Despite all those infrastructures, Cameroon which targets a national production of 3,000 MW by 2020 has barely 2,000 MW installed out of a hydroelectric potential estimated at 13,000 MW by World Bank.

Brice R. Mbodiam