For years, West Africa has been trying to solve an electricity problem that no country can realistically solve alone. About 8 per cent of regional electricity is now traded across borders, according to the World Bank, as West African countries continue efforts to build a more integrated electricity market.
Recent examples show that cross-border electricity trade is already supported by several regional interconnections. Guinea is connected to The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal through the Gambia River Basin Development Organisation (OMVG) transmission network.
The Côte d’Ivoire-Liberia-Sierra Leone-Guinea (CLSG) interconnection has also created a regional transmission corridor through which Côte d’Ivoire supplies electricity to neighbouring countries. The WAPP Information and Coordination Centre (ICC), based in Abomey-Calavi, Benin, is now helping to manage this increasingly interconnected system. Inaugurated in November 2023, the centre coordinates the regional power system, while its market room is being prepared for Day-Ahead Market operations as regional electricity trading moves into its next phase.
But electricity does not move across borders simply because governments agree that it should. The system also has to work across national borders, with utilities, regulators and governments able to coordinate their roles.
These are the challenges facing the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its specialised institution, the West African Power Pool (WAPP), as they move toward a more integrated regional electricity market.
From national grids to a regional market
WAPP’s regional integration project dates back to 2006, when its Convention was signed on 6 July, establishing a key institutional foundation for energy cooperation and the integration of West Africa’s power systems.
Since then, the organisation has worked to integrate national power systems so countries can exchange electricity through an increasingly coordinated regional network. The first phase of the regional electricity market was launched on 29 June 2018, initially focusing on bilateral electricity transactions between neighbouring countries.
But bilateral arrangements alone cannot deliver the full promise of a regional market. The next stage is a market in which electricity can be traded under common rules governing market participation, transmission access and financial settlement.
The ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA) approved the Regional Electricity Market Code in September 2025, providing a common framework for the operation of the regional market. The framework has since moved into implementation, with work on the commercial, technical and financial arrangements required for Market Phase 2. That next stage is now approaching operationalisation.
WAPP said in August 2026 that Phase 2 of the regional market, the Day-Ahead Market, was nearing launch, with the organisation having signed an agreement in July with a Market Clearing Bank to support the market’s financial transactions.
The region has also advanced the framework for transmission pricing. WAPP says the methodology and calculation model for the Regional Transmission Tariff were approved in March 2026, while ERERA subsequently adopted the methodology in April.
The framework establishes the basis for calculating charges associated with electricity transmission across the regional market. The question is no longer simply whether West Africa can connect its electricity networks. What matters now is whether those connections can finally become a dependable regional electricity trade system that delivers power when and where people need it.
The ICC: Keeping a complicated system together
The Information and Coordination Centre (ICC) may not be visible to the ordinary electricity consumer, but its role is central to the regional integration project. The centre supports the real-time supervision and regional coordination of the interconnected power system.
Its importance became particularly clear during the electricity supply difficulties that affected several West African countries in June 2026. WAPP reported that several member countries were experiencing significant supply constraints at the same time, resulting in load-shedding programmes in parts of their national grids.
The organisation attributed the situation to sustained high demand, outages at major generation facilities and seasonal factors affecting hydropower output.
Through the ICC, WAPP continued coordinating operations across the interconnected system with transmission system operators and electricity utilities as the affected countries implemented exceptional measures to preserve grid stability and limit the impact of the disruptions.
The episode illustrates both the value and the limits of regional electricity coordination. An interconnected system can help countries share information, coordinate their response to disruptions and make better use of available electricity.
WAPP said cross-border exchanges also helped reduce the scale of supply interruptions in several cases during the June crisis.
A historic technical achievement
There is, however, evidence that the technical foundation for deeper integration is becoming stronger. In November 2025, WAPP conducted a historic synchronisation test of the West African power grid. The exercise successfully synchronised the Nigeria-Niger transmission network with the wider interconnected West African system, enabling uninterrupted power flow across the regional network for four continuous hours.
The test was coordinated from the ICC in Calavi and confirmed, according to WAPP, the technical feasibility of operating the interconnected system in a coordinated manner. WAPP identified potential benefits including reserve sharing, improved system stability and enhanced energy security.
For a region made up of countries with different generation mixes, demand patterns, transmission networks and national operating procedures, that was a significant achievement.
Synchronising the grids, however, does not by itself create a functioning electricity market. It still requires sufficient transmission capacity, available generation, stable grids, creditworthy buyers, enforceable contracts and regulators capable of applying common rules. The harder test may be whether countries can make the commercial and institutional arrangements work.
The transmission bottleneck
Electricity can only be traded at scale if there are transmission corridors capable of moving power from where it is generated to where it is needed. That is why major regional interconnection projects remain central to WAPP’s plans.
WAPP and its partners continue to work on projects intended to strengthen the regional transmission backbone, including the proposed 330-kilovolt Median Backbone project. In May 2026, WAPP brought technical and financial partners together to discuss financing for the project, following work on route alignment, environmental and social impact studies and feasibility studies.
National utilities and regulators play the frontline role in ensuring that domestic grids can safely handle cross-border flows. But those institutional arrangements still depend on a transmission network with enough capacity to carry electricity across borders. This matters because electricity resources and demand are not evenly distributed across West Africa. Some countries have significant generation potential, including hydropower and thermal generation, while others face persistent supply deficits.
Can one country’s surplus solve another country’s shortage?
In principle, regional trade allows electricity that would otherwise be underused in one country to be sold to a neighbouring country facing a shortage, provided transmission capacity, market rules and payment arrangements are in place. WAPP says the forthcoming Day-Ahead Market is intended in part to optimise the use of available energy resources across the region.
There are already cases where this is happening. Guinea’s hydropower is reaching Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia through the OMVG transmission loop. The World Bank says this has helped cut Guinea-Bissau’s generation costs by more than half, from 25 to 11 US cents per kWh, and reduced costs for The Gambia’s utility by 42 per cent. Côte d’Ivoire is also supplying electricity to Liberia and Sierra Leone through the Côte d’Ivoire-Liberia-Sierra Leone-Guinea (CLSG) interconnection, with World Bank data showing that the imports reduced annual weighted average generation costs by 20 per cent in Liberia and 34 per cent in Sierra Leone during August 2022 to July 2023.
That possibility has an important limitation. A country cannot be expected to function as a dependable exporter if its own electricity system is too weak or unpredictable. The regional supply difficulties of June 2026 demonstrated how quickly this advantage can disappear when several countries experience generation constraints simultaneously.
The difficult question of trust
This is where the regional electricity project stops being merely an engineering exercise. WAPP coordinates the regional power system and market, while national utilities and grid operators manage their domestic systems and cross-border electricity flows. ERERA regulates interstate electricity exchanges and supports national regulatory bodies, while governments and national institutions remain involved in developing and implementing cross-border projects.
The difficulty is making these different layers work together. Every ECOWAS member country has its own laws, tariff structure, utility arrangements and national priorities. Differences in regulation, weak coordination or conflicting domestic priorities could disrupt cross-border transactions. Among the practical challenges is what happens to contracted electricity when domestic demand rises.
There are also questions over who bears the cost when transmission failures disrupt a transaction, what happens when a buyer fails to pay, and how disputes between utilities or regulatory authorities in different countries are resolved.
During a March 2026 working visit by the President of the ECOWAS Court of Justice to WAPP, discussions around the next phase of the regional electricity market highlighted the importance of clear rules, effective regulation, reliable payment mechanisms and a credible judicial framework for resolving disputes.
WAPP said the discussions also highlighted contractual discipline, stakeholder confidence and the mobilisation of investment as challenges to the development of the regional market. The market will depend not only on functioning infrastructure, but on institutions capable of regulating transactions, enforcing contracts, resolving disputes and maintaining confidence among participants.
The money behind the electricity
There is another part of the market that consumers may never see but which could determine whether regional electricity trading succeeds: financial settlement. When one utility supplies electricity to another, there must be a reliable mechanism for measuring the transaction, calculating what is owed, guaranteeing payment and settling the account.
WAPP has been working on these mechanisms as part of the preparations for Market Phase 2, including settlement procedures, criteria for selecting a settlement bank and financial guarantee arrangements. That work moved into a more concrete phase in July 2026, when WAPP signed an agreement with a Market Clearing Bank to support the operationalisation of the regional market. The consequences extend beyond generators.
If a utility cannot trust its counterparty to pay, it may hesitate to enter into long-term regional transactions. Investors, meanwhile, will think twice before putting money into infrastructure if the commercial framework remains uncertain.
What should West Africa expect from the ICC?
The ICC cannot create generation or transmission capacity. Its value lies in helping operators see what is happening across the regional power system and coordinate their response.
WAPP describes the centre as a hub for supervision, coordination and operation of the regional power system, while its market room is being prepared to host Day-Ahead Market operations.
It can help system operators understand what is happening across interconnected networks, coordinate responses to disturbances and support the development of a market in which electricity can eventually be traded more efficiently. That is important because a regional market depends heavily on information. Participants need to know what electricity is available, where it is available, where it can be transmitted, and what capacity exists on the network.
Without reliable data and coordinated system operations, participants cannot make informed trading decisions or respond effectively when conditions on the interconnected grid change.
The ICC’s performance can be measured by whether cross-border electricity exchanges increase, disruptions are managed more quickly, available transmission capacity is used more efficiently, and the volume of electricity traded across borders grows.
The real test begins now.
Twenty years after WAPP’s founding convention, West Africa has built much of the architecture required for regional electricity integration. The region now has interconnected power systems, a regional coordination centre, a demonstrated capacity for synchronous grid operation, market rules and emerging transmission-pricing and financial mechanisms, while preparations continue for the next phase of regional electricity trading.
The success of that market will not be measured by the number of agreements signed or institutions created. It will be measured by whether electricity moves reliably across borders, whether utilities can trade with confidence and whether the system delivers more dependable power to consumers and businesses.
The ICC can improve the coordination needed to make that possible, but whether regional trading delivers will depend on adequate transmission capacity, reliable generation, secure payment arrangements and institutions capable of applying the rules consistently.
