Description
Project Name: Mount Coffee
Project owner: Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC)
Standard: GCC
Project ID: 1346
The Mount Coffe hydropower plant is located on the Saint Paul River, 30 km northeast of Liberia’s capital Monrovia and had been built in the mid sixties. It was at the time the largest hydropower plant ever built in Liberia. After its inauguration HPP Mount Coffee had an installed capacity of 64 MW.
The facility was damaged during the country’s civil war (1989 – 2003) and was left abandoned until 2012 when the government launched the project’s rehabilitation.
In December 2016, the first hydropower turbine and generator unit, with an installed capacity of 22 MW, was officially commissioned. The project, completed in 2018, raised the total installed capacity of the Mt. Coffee hydropower plant to 88 MW (four generating units of 22 MW each). The redevelopment has maintained the plant’s 60-year structure, while the existing equipment has been strengthened and replaced by modern technologies, thus limiting the impact on the environment and the population.
Apart from Mount Coffee, electricity in Liberia is mainly generated from thermal power plants. It’s the country’s strategy to develop more hydropower plants to increase renewable energy availability.
LEC is a public utility created in 1973 by the Government of Liberia. Their mission is to increase reliable access to affordable electricity throughout the country, in the quickest, most prudent and sustainable way possible.
Since 2006, efforts are underway in order to restore the country’s electricity infrastructure that was almost entirely destroyed during the periods of civil unrest in the country.
Impact
In Liberia, around 30% of the population has access to electricity.
The project allows a larger part of the population to have access to electricity.
The plant was renovated through advanced technology transfer from industrialized countries.
Mount Coffee was renovated with the most modern technology in all of West Africa.
LEC used the local workforce to renovate the plant.
60 technicians and locals were trained in several stages for the operation and maintenance of the plant.
Businesses and households are still using expensive diesel generators to get electricity.
For businesses who are connected to the grid, production costs have dropped by 70%.
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