ECODIT Brings Electricity to Sub-Saharan Africa
By Celia Zeilberger, ECODIT’s Communications Manager | February 13, 2020
In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), two out of three people lack access to electricity. Improving access to electricity there could increase education, incomes, health, and security, while fueling economic growth for millions of people.
To achieve this ambitious goal, and since 2013, the U.S. Government’s Power Africa Initiative has been engaging a wide variety of private and public sector partners to directly address the constraints to project development and investment in SSA’s energy sector. Power Africa aims to create 60 million new electricity connections and generate 30,000 additional megawatts (MWs) of newer, cleaner power in SSA.
ECODIT, a U.S. small business, is a prime holder of the USAID Power Africa IDIQ and an active partner in supporting the initiative’s goals. For example, ECODIT helped the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—a country with one of the lowest rates of electrification in the world—to reform its power sector and add hundreds of MWs in generation. Specifically, from 2014 through 2019, ECODIT worked closely with the DRC Government to reform the sector through two USAID projects: the DRC Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) project (2014-2016) and the DRC Power Sector Reform (PSR) Project (2016-2019). ECODIT directly supported the government on power sector reform, regulatory development, energy policy improvement, donor coordination, public-private partnerships, power sector strategy implementation, and more to advance power generation and transmission transactions. These efforts led to much-needed reforms and laid the groundwork for the establishment of a new Energy Regulatory Authority and Rural Electrification Agency. In addition, ECODIT supported private sector energy developments throughout the country with the potential to add thousands of new connections to the grid.
ECODIT is now leveraging experiences like these to further help Power Africa meet its goals. For example, the firm is conducting a feasibility study of 69 mini-grids in Niger that could support modern energy access for nearly 100 rural villages and help electrify over 20,000 rural households. The firm has already finished site enumeration activities and technical and economic analyses for all 69 sites. Given that Niger’s rural electrification rate of less than one percent, these efforts have the potential to be a real catalyst for electrifying the country.
“ECODIT is proud to be a Power Africa partner,” said ECODIT President Joseph Karam. “Together with the U.S. Government and its development and private sector partners, we are helping to lift up millions of people in SSA communities through improved electricity access.”