The Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) has provided funding of $60 million to fuel Senegal's national ambitions for electrification and gas use.
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According to the IEA's 2019 African Energy Outlook, Senegal's electrification rate was 69% in 2018, with a rate of 92% in urban areas but 42% in rural areas.
The country's national electrification roadmap, Plan Senegal Emergent, affirms the government's ambition to increase its electrification rate to 100% by 2025. At the same time, it wishes to reduce the costs of power generation by reducing its dependence on imported liquid fuels and increasing electricity access to rural areas.
Power will soon switch from using heavy fuel oil to gas. The change of fuel will substantially reduce Senegal's fuel bill and hopefully affect the electricity cost, in line with the Emerging Senegal Plan. It would be the first source of electricity production in the country powered by gas.
This decision aligns with Senegal's plan to reduce carbon emissions, thus pursuing the UN Sustainable Development Goal 13 on climate change. It also reinforces Senegal's ambition to switch to natural gas for electricity production by 2035, thus reducing the emission factor of national networks.
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