NEPAD Agency’s proposal for the establishment of a Continental Transmission Network was well received at the meeting held in Addis Ababa from 24 -27 April, by the 11 Africa Power Pools Forum and the Association of Africa Power Utilities. The Continental Transmission Network will link all the African utilities and create a huge energy market that will enable any utility to source energy from the most competitive sources within Africa or beyond.

“The Africa Power Pools Forum and the Association of Africa Power Utilities gave their support to NEPAD Agency to realise the visionary proposal that will lead to an integrated and prosperous Africa in its best form,” remarked Prof Mosad Elmissiry, Senior Energy Advisor to the NEPAD Agency’s CEO.

The meeting further undertook to work with NEPAD Agency and develop the terms of reference for a team to develop the masterplan for the Continental Transmission Network. Furthermore, both the power pools and utilities requested NEPAD Agency to expand the transmission network to become a continental power system network that includes both generation and transmission.

The NEPAD plan was welcomed as instrumental to the continental network for energy sufficiency in Africa. The plan is anchored first on the development and the realisation of each power pool masterplan, where all the utilities within each power pool are first connected and then all the regional networks linked using the most optimum links, thereby forming the continental transmission network.

The continental transmission network will be connected with Europe through the existing link between Morocco and Spain and the planed links between Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria with Italy. In addition, the continental transmission network will be connected with Asia via the existing link between Egypt and Jordon. It will be also connected to the Gulf States via the existing link between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, thus creating a huge intercontinental energy market where energy is not only traded within Africa but between Africa and Europe, Asia and the Gulf States.

In addition to presenting the continental transmission network, the NEPAD Regional Integration, Infrastructure and Trade programme team (represented by Prof Elmissiry, Tichakunda Simbini and Ephrem Getahun), also presented the useful information provided by the Virtual PIDA Information Centre and the data information systems developed at NEPAD Agency.