By Ayomide Otitoju
The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund has approved an additional $7.41 million loan to support completion of the Renewable Energy for Electrification project in Liberia. The decision was taken at a board meeting held on Thursday in Abidjan.
The new financing will address cost overruns linked to construction of the project’s hydropower plant and related infrastructure, as well as project management expenses resulting from implementation delays. It will also support underfunded components such as the Gender Action Plan, ensuring full delivery of project outputs, including completion of the power plant, grid integration, and implementation of environmental and social safeguards.
A joint initiative of the Liberian government and the African Development Bank Group, the project was approved in October 2019, with financing agreements signed in January 2020. Implementation began in March 2021.
At the centre of the project is the construction of a 9.34-megawatt run-of-river hydropower plant at Gbedin Falls in Nimba County, expected to generate 56.5 gigawatt-hours annually. The plant will be linked to an 8-km, 33-kilovolt transmission line, two substations, and a cross-border transmission network. The project also includes a 15-km permanent access road, an 8-km temporary road, 50 km of distribution lines, and new grid connections for 6,650 households in Nimba and Bong counties.
Once completed, the initiative is projected to boost Liberia’s national energy supply by about 6.9%, adding 56.5 gigawatt-hours per year, and extend electricity access to approximately 60,000 people, including 6,500 new direct household connections.
