The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), on Monday, said a consortium of firms has been engaged to provide technical and financial assistance to companies in the off-grid solar photovoltaics (PV) as it seeks to implement the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP).

Financed by the World Bank, the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and the Dutch Cooperation (DGIS) of about $338 million (or N266 billion), the project is aimed at increasing access to sustainable electricity services in the 15 ECOWAS member countries and four other nations in sub-Saharan Africa (Mauritania, Central African Republic, Cameroon and Chad) for households, commercial enterprises, public infrastructure health, education and community by isolated solar systems and all, according to a harmonized regional approach.

As part of the implementation of the project, the TSC Global/Intech-GOPA/AFC/BB and Co group officially signed a contract in Abuja as Project Fund Manager (PFM) of the project.

Following a procurement process following the donor’s procedures, ECOWAS said in a release that the TSC Global/Intech-GOPA/AFC/BB Consortium was retained by the ECOWAS Commission as ROGEAP Fund Manager to provide Technical and Financial support, not only to the private sector but also to commercial banks and microfinance institutions in the countries covered by the project.

Composed of several companies, specialising in financial support and management of environmental and social risks to autonomous companies in the solar energy sector, ECOWAS said the ROGEAP PFM is primarily responsible for supporting ECOWAS to implement at several levels.

The PFM would provide support to regional ecosystem development for sustainable off-grid industry growth, provide information sharing on the market and trade facilitation between stakeholders, increase regional demand through consumer awareness and promotion campaigns and assist in removing supply-side constraints by building the capacity of commercial financial institutions and other relevant stakeholders

The PFM is also to provide technical support for capacity building of enterprises characterised by differentiated support throughout the life cycle of enterprise development (start-up, early stage, growth and maturity), provide financial support to enterprises which would result in a catalytic grant intended to support a critical mass of entrepreneurs in the development of solar products, business models, among others and assist in the removal of barriers for difficult markets through two types of subsidies namely; the market entry subsidy and the performance-based subsidy.

Initiated in 2017, ROGEAP is administered by a Steering Committee composed of representatives of the ECOWAS Commission, West African Development Bank (BOAD) and the World Bank.