Seychelles secures $31m to expand electricity distribution
Off the East African coast, in the Seychelles, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa in collaboration with the Saudi Fund for Development on Tuesday signed a $31 million loan agreement for the improvement of electricity distribution network across the island nation.
The funds will enable the Indian Ocean island nation's Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) to implement a 33KV transmission and distribution electricity network for the southern region of the main island of Mahé, the Seychelles News Agency (SNA) reports.
Improved transmission and distribution network
Although the project is only expected to commence next year, PUC has already started to extend the distribution network from Roche Caiman up to the international airport on the eastern coast of Mahé.
PUC’s CEO Philip Morni said the project is expected to take two years to materialise.
He noted that the project will allow the electricity provider to deliver a better service to the residents of the southern region where an estimated 10,000 people and 13 hotels are expected to benefit from the new transmission and distribution network.
Morni told SNA that the network project is essential as the demand for electricity in South Mahé is gradually increasing.
He added: "Demand is continually increasing with a large number of hotel developments earmarked for the South of Mahé and a number of existing hotels today are not connected to PUC's electricity network and are producing their own electricity... with the new project PUC will be able to connect them to the network."
"The loan will help us to go beyond that. We will need to build substations along the way including at Providence, at the airport etc... substations where we will have transformers and switches to be able to do local distribution.
"The 33KV transmission and distribution network will start at the Roche Caiman power station down the Eastern Coast and into the South and then back up along the West Coast to Anse Boileau where PUC has an existing 33KV network,” he concluded.