Cameroon currently produces over 1,227 megawatts of electricity for household and industrial uses.

This comes notably from already functional hydroelectricity dams like Mape, Bemendjin, Mbakaou, Edéa, Songloulou, Lagdo and thermal plants like Limbe, Oyomabang 1, Oyomabang 2, Logbaba, Bafoussam, Bassa as well as the Kribi Gas Fired plant among others. Four emergency thermal plants constructed in 2012 to bridge the then shouting demand/supply shortfall also give a push when fuel is available to power the machines.

There are already huge investments on some ongoing hydroelectricity dam projects and others in the pipeline which could upon completion give a non-negligible push to the sector. Target is to hit at least 3,000 megawatts by 2020.

While waiting, many of the country’s citizens stay in darkness either because the precious commodity is yet to get to their localities or because it is not enough to ensure an all-round supply. But the country is richly endowed with gifts of nature notably wind, sunshine and even garbage through which clean and environmental-friendly energy, call it green power, could be generated to meet growing demand. Strangely, the country is yet to boast of a veritable investment -friendly strategy that can seduce investors into the sector for win-win investments . For sure, investors are increasingly showing interest in breaking the apparent virgin land but a viable strategy could have better developed the sector and offered the population an opportunity to make meaningful choices.

There seems to be revived consciousness within government circles on how renewable sources could impact the country’s energy sector. It emerged from the traditional monthly Cabinet meeting for April that the legal and institutional supervision of renewable energies in Cameroon was instituted through the December 24, 2011 law governing the electricity sector in the country and the creation in 2012 of a department in the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy for that purpose.  Although concerned government officials acknowledged that the country has huge potentials in wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other energy sources with the exploitation envisaged in the ten-year Growth and Employment Strategy Paper and the Electricity Sector Development Plan, attracting substantial investors however remains problematic. This is owing to the absence of an investment-friendly strategy to engender mutually beneficial investments in the sector. It is no secret that investors are not philanthropists and so always need assurances that where they are getting into can yield dividends. An absence of a plan in the sector can either limit potential investors or encourage unscrupulous ones who would clandestinely invest at the detriment of the State. 

If others have succeeded elsewhere, it is certainly because well-tailored strategies were crafted to enhance their development. In Israel for instance, almost all households have solar panels on their roof tops. Load shading there is as scarce as dog tears. There is nothing wrong in copying what is succeeding. Cameroon absolutely needs a renewable energy promotion strategy worth the name. The country already has a revolutionary legal instrument on private investment, the April 18, 2013 law, with diverse advantages for potential investors in diverse sectors. An innovative promotion strategy for renewable energy could therefore transform this law, like others; into useful investments for the country.  Only then can the sector be a veritable lever to the country’s economic development as wished by the Head of Government when he urged the experts to finalise work to tailor the legal framework of renewable energies as well as update renewable energies component of the Electricity Sector Plan, to make it a lever of economic development. Light, they say is life.