Memoire Online - Financing problems of photovoltaic panels in cameroon

The use of electricity is essential to facilitate the daily lives of each household in Cameroon. Despite the law, which guarantees every citizen's access to electricity more than half households are excluded. To this end, less than 60% of the population does not benefit from electricity.

Although rural electrification agencies were created, connection rates in rural areas is less than 5%. According to a recent survey AES-Sonel operator satisfies less than 25% of users and the electricity cost is high. The connection cost is excessive and inaccessible to the vast majority of consumers causing benefits unpopularity to AES-Sonel manifested by most consumers who complained in the courts.

Figure 5 shows an overview of the evolution of the demand and supply of electrical energy between the years 2007 to 2012 in Cameroon. As demonstrated on the figure

below Cameroon went through an energy crisis which explains the shortage of supply. Growth in electricity demand is estimated at 8% per annual. Access to electricity oscillates at 6.6% in rural areas, the state wants to raise this to 30% in 2020.

Despite its vast hydroelectric potential (second in Africa after the Democratic Republic of Congo) power installed and operated in Cameroon is estimated at 1060 megawatts only essentially divided between hydroelectric and thermal sources, which form the grid.

Observed under-utilization of the installed capacity. In reality, the amount of energy actually delivered is extremely low because of the enormous technical failures of transmission and distribution of electricity; this malfunction is between 30 and 40% of producible.

The production of electrical energy is based on the theory of marginal cost and is the actual cost of sales kW, which is the cost of reference in the sector of electric power. Globally, this marginal cost depends on the source of energy production and is a function of two variables:

? The cost of producing power in a Basic Plan ? Technical loss in transmission lines

Moreover, it is important to know that whatever technical loss plays the role of regulating the electricity tariff. It must be said that the rates applied to users incorporate both production costs of transmission and distribution cost of transport losses. Consumer's electricity Bills increase due to distribution charge, inflation and an inexorable purchasing power impose by the producers.

Figure 6 represents the array of price ranges per monthly consumption in kilowatt. We notice an increase of 7% for domestic consumption and 8.5% for non-domestic consumption. To this end, we note that the price of electricity increases significantly each year. Today it stands to 77.7 FCFA = 0.12 Euro per kilowatt.

Figure 7: The details in the diagram below show the cost of installation of a solar system for a household in Cameroon.

After watching the charging system of Electrical Energy in force in Cameroon, we see that the operator AES-Sonel uses part of the revenues derive from huge cuts of electricity to finance transport operation of thermal power plants. These revenues amounted to 40 million FCFA / year. This money can be used to improve the transport lines and high tension that would stabilize electricity prices and even pull them down. Upon reflection, we find that the price per kilowatt is far too expensive for a household due to unreliable service. It is therefore important that the government makes a considerable effort to diversify the sources of supply.

In addition, the promotion of alternative energies like solar could be an adequate solution because Cameroon has a potential that is elevated to more than 20 times as compared to its hydro electrical potential. Sunshine duration is 2000 hours and an average of 4.5 kWh/m2 /j.

In Cameroon, the supply of solar energy has increased significantly; we can quote the creation of a rural electrification project with major Cameroonian localities to electrify 250 households which will be equivalent to 530 billion FCFA of investment. This project has been provided by the companies Investricity (Irish-owned company) and Hanwha (Korean company law), the two main investors in this project therefore aim to produce 500 Megawatts and will be injected into the national network of electricity production of Cameroon. This project could overcome the problem of energetic deficit suffered by Cameroon.

This project will certainly solve the problem of energetic deficit in Cameroon; because of the high cost of these equipments, it is accessible only to the urban population and inaccessible to the rural population. However, the installation of a solar system is around 1 million FCFA.

In Cameroon, specialized structures in this area are oriented only in the mounting kit solar and their maintenance. We have identified few companies in this sector.

Enterprises / Web sites	Activities
Photovoltaic Cameroon www.cameroon-photovoltaic.info	Kit and Equipment

2EC www.2ec-cm.com	Kit and Equipment

Sun Energy development www.sunergydevelopment.fr	Kit and Equipment

MANGUYSAMA www.manguysama.fr	Kit and Equipment

Following the studied aspects, Cameroon has enough potential to justify the use of solar panels as an alternative energy. Due to its relatively high rate of sunshine, the environment is an advantage favouring the installation of these panels in both the rural and urban areas. Yet, popularization of solar energy is not completely tangible in Cameroon due to the fact that the sector is not liberalized.

Hence it follows the high tax of custom rates, a lack of measures related to the import of the material.

In general, these problems represent obstacles to funding solar panels that we will detail below according to Institutional, financial and political aspects.

Financing problems of photovoltaic panels in cameroon

2.6 Economical and Commercial aspects