Coordinating West Africa’s Power Sector Transition in the West African Power Pool

About Project

As a specialised institution of the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS), the West African Power Pool (WAPP) plays a vital role in fostering the development of regional electricity generation and transmission infrastructure. West Africa faces a persistent energy access and reliability crisis that continues to constrain economic transformation, industrial development, and social wellbeing. At the same time, electricity demand across the region is projected to double by 2030, placing additional pressure on already stretched infrastructure. 

Yet the region is endowed with vast renewable energy potential. Harnessing these resources at scale presents a historic opportunity to expand energy access, catalyse green industrialisation, reduce emissions, and advance inclusive economic growth. WAPP, mandated to integrate national power systems into a unified regional electricity market capable of delivering reliable and affordable power, holds significant potential to drive the scaling of renewable energy within the region.

 This project aims to accelerate renewable-driven industrialisation by strengthening regional cooperation and strategic policy alignment across ECOWAS. The project considers the conceptual foundations and practical considerations for a renewable energy enabled WAPP grid to catalyse the manufacturing and industrialisation of centralised and decentralised RE value chains with just transition at its core. 

 The viability of large-scale RE implementation across WAPP is explored through some of the following intervention areas: the political economy and diplomacy required to align national interests with regional goals; technical grid and generation modelling to identify least-cost pathways; industrial policy to link green energy with local value chains; and the regulatory frameworks necessary for cross-border power trade; and finance and investment. 

As a multi-year, multi-stakeholder initiative, it covers baseline discovery to high-level implementation. Initial stages focused on establishing a collaborative Working Group and conducting a comprehensive data audit to understand the current regional landscape. Later stages involve deep technical analysis and assessing the viability of political buy-in, before a push for full implementation through a permanent Coordination Platform and Technical Taskforce. Ultimately, the project seeks to provide the data, approach and mechanism for a politically viable, socially inclusive, and regionally coordinated renewable energy transition across ECOWAS.