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Commissioner Piebalgs to announce concrete projects in Africa to provide access to clean energy

Today, EU Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs, will participate to the High Level event on Sustainable Energy for All at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Commissioner will unveil EU's projects in African countries to make access to clean energy a reality for people on the ground.

EU Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs will say:

"We have to turn intentions into concrete actions that will bring modern energy to the World's poorest citizens, and catalyse renewable energy and energy efficiency across the globe. The EU is uniquely well placed to do this, as by far the World's largest provider of official development assistance, and the world leader in renewable and electricity technologies.

At the EU Summit on Sustainable Energy for All in April 2012 President Barroso set the ambitious goal for the European Union of helping developing countries to provide 500 million people with access to sustainable energy services.

So, the EU is transforming this pledge into concrete action.

We are discussing with countries from the Great Lakes region the last steps for financing the Ruzizi II hydropower project and we started working on the development of the Inga River potential. We are working with Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC to establish a regional Energy Plan, creating the conditions for investment to flow into an area that could be the green powerhouse of central Africa.

Cooperation is already ongoing in many countries. In Ghana, for example, we are assisting the government to establish a Renewable Energy Fund and together with the KfW and AFD we are discussing with the energy ministry which energy programmes to support until 2020.

In Burkina-Faso the EU is supporting the construction of 22 MW solar power plant with 96 000 solar panels for an amount of 63 million Euro. Through this project the EU will help to provide sufficient electricity to more than 400 000 people.

We will also further assist our partners in the development of National Energy Action Plans over the next 6 to 18 months.

An EU technical assistance facility of 65 million Euro is already in place and we intend to mobilise at minimum 400 million Euros for energy-related actions in African countries, all over the next 2 years, and this through leveraged innovative financial instruments that should result in concrete investments of 4-8 billion Euros on the ground."

Full speech will be available later today on:
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/12/638&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Photos and video from Commissioner Piebalgs at UNGA will be available on Europe by Satellite: http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/photo/index.cfm?sitelang=en

                                                                             

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