Ivory Coast to build world's first cocoa waste power plant

From the newsletter

Climate Fund Managers (CFM), a climate-focused blended finance investment manager, has pledged $3 million to fund a 76 MW biomass plant in Ivory Coast. The facility will be the world's first grid-connected plant to generate electricity from cocoa waste. It will be built through a public-private partnership with SODEN, an independent power producer.

• Ivory Coast is the world's leading producer of cocoa, contributing 45% of the global supply. Every tonne of cocoa creates more than 13 tonnes of waste, presenting an opportunity for electricity generation.

• African countries are exploring various waste-to-energy solutions. As agricultural economies, they produce about 1 billion tonnes of waste annually. Some, like Ethiopia, are already harnessing waste for electricity.

More details

• The Divo Biomass Project has been under development since 2016. In 2018, it received a $996,000 grant from the US Trade and Development Agency to support feasibility studies. The project expects to raise $35 million in equity at financial close in 2026.

• Côte d’Ivoire has initiated other agricultural biomass projects using palm oil waste, but this is the first to utilise cocoa waste at scale and supply the national grid. The country produces about 33 million tonnes of cocoa waste each year. The proposed project will convert only 600,000 tonnes of this, leaving a substantial amount of waste.

• Waste-to-energy (WtE) power projects have been implemented before in Africa, but primarily on a small scale. Industries in the agricultural sector, such as sugar factories, already reuse sugar waste to generate electricity. However, grid-scale implementation is less common. Though a few countries are considering it as part of their energy mix. Sierra Leone (30 MW), Kenya (10 MW), and Nigeria (75 MW) are just some of the projects under development.

• The economics of WtE projects are not yet clear, with limited research available. The continuous availability of raw materials is a critical component that needs to be factored into planning. The Reppie facility in Ethiopia serves as a prime example: the plant struggles to secure a continuous supply of quality waste and currently operates at just about half its capacity.

• Waste-to-energy plants have successfully worked in developed countries like Sweden because of strong supportive policies and regulations. For instance, Sweden has banned landfills, built the necessary waste-to-energy infrastructure, and provided incentives to support recycling. Sweden has done so well that it even imports waste.

• Waste-to-energy technology is not yet fully mature and hasn't received enough funding to support research and development, and has a higher Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) than solar. However, it could potentially compete in countries with high wholesale energy prices, significant landfill taxes, and high population densities. Its ability to provide stable, baseload power is a critical advantage for grid stability in Africa's often weak grids, which can justify a higher cost.

Our take

• The Ivory Coast cocoa waste plant is unique as it focuses on specialised feedstock, which is plentiful in the country, guaranteeing the plant a consistent supply once operations begin. It won't face problems encountered by municipal solid waste WtE plants like Reppie in Ethiopia, which often struggle with inconsistent and high-moisture waste.

• The project has the potential to generate a new income stream for cocoa farmers, which is a great incentive for its long-term viability.

• Waste-to-energy projects, however, will struggle to compete with the likes of solar and battery storage, which continue receiving huge financing to support their research and development, which have led to huge price declines over the last decade.