Developing solar power to facilitate access to reliable and cheap energy

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The construction of the Zagtouli solar power plant, southwest of the capital Ouagadougou, was completed in September 2017.France and the European Union pooled their efforts to get this large-scale project off the ground. With its 129,600 solar panels covering an area of 60 hectares, the equivalent of 84 football pitches, the Zagtouli solar power plant will supply clean energy to 660,000 people, while reducing the generation cost by a factor of four. The construction has been entrusted to CEGELEC (Vinci Group), whose €37 million contract includes two years of operation to prepare SONABEL’s staff for the management of this power plant.This project meets the priorities set by the Government of Burkina Faso under the National Economic and Social Development Plan (PNDES) and the commitments made during COP21. The Zagtouli solar power plant is the first step in an extensive program to develop solar energy production in Burkina Faso. The objective is to supply over 100 MW of solar energy on Burkina Faso’s grid by 2020, i.e. about 30% of the country’s total production.