Pâ Solar Power Station

Pâ Solar Power Station, is a 30 MW solar power plant in Burkina Faso. The power station was commercially commissioned in December 2023.

Location
The power station is located in the Pâ Department of Balé Province, near the town of Pâ, in southwestern Burkina Faso. Pâ is approximately 44 km, by road, southwest of the town of Boromo, the provincial headquarters. This is about 222 km by road southwest of Ouagadougou, the capital and largest city of Burkina Faso.

Overview
The power station has a capacity of 30 megawatts, which is sold directly to Société Nationale d'électricité du Burkina Faso (SONABEL), the electric utility company of Burkina Faso, for integration in the national electricity grid. The developers of the power station have signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with SONABEL. After twenty-five years, ownership of the power station will revert to the Government of Burkina Faso.

The power station sits on 35 ha of land, and comprises 25,000 solar panels. The energy generated is sufficient to supply 150,000 customers.

Developers
The power station was developed by a consortium comprising Urbasolar, a French independent power producer, and Projet Production Solaire (PPS), a Burkinabe company, with minority shareholding in the special vehicle company that will own and develop the power station. For descriptive purposes, let us call that company Pâ Solar Consortium. Urbasolar is a subsidiary of Axpo Holding, a publicly traded Swiss energy conglomerate.

Costs and funding
The cost of construction was budgeted at €35.4 million. The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), a member of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), agreed to lend €29 million towards this project. Urbasolar was expected to provide the remaining €6.4 million in funding. The table below illustrates the sources of funding for this power station.