Sénégal: ASER sets out its mini-grid ambition at Saint-Louis, where…

ASER, the Agence sénégalaise d’électrification rurale, Senegal’s rural electrification agency, wants universal access by 2029 and has pledges worth two and a half times what it says it needs. Its new director general spent 22 October at Gandon, with the Moroccan-owned concessionaire that already operates every technology in the plan.

Comasel is already deploying mini-grids

Comasel runs mini-grids across its concessions. The energy regulator’s 2024 tariff review records a maintenance plan covering 166 mini-centrales solaires in the Louga concession alone, alongside hybrid plants with generator backup for days of poor sunlight. What Pape Momar Ngom inspected at Bou Menguène and Khelcom Diaw on 22 October was the third technology, individual solar kits supplying lighting, ventilation, television and refrigeration.

Who Comasel is

The Compagnie Maroco-Sénégalaise d’Électricité is a subsidiary of ONEE, Morocco’s national electricity and water utility. It holds the first two rural electrification concessions awarded in Senegal, Saint-Louis signed on 30 May 2008 and Louga on 19 November 2009, each for 25 years and merged into one company in 2022. It covers six departments and reports more than 50,000 subscribers, billed at Senelec’s tariffs.

How it is financed

ASER put the cost of connecting the remaining localities at 396bn FCFA (€604m) in June. On 6 October the energy ministry said a round table in Dakar had produced 998bn FCFA (€1.52bn) in pledges, 817bn from private companies and 181bn from technical and financial partners. The private share is not aid. Senegal electrifies rural areas through concessions in which an operator invests, bills at Senelec’s regulated tariff and recovers part of its outlay through output-based subsidies. No mechanism has been published for these pledges.

ASER sorts the 6,471 villages still without electricity by distance from the grid and by size. Comasel, the concessionaire for the north, already operates all three tiers. SolarBrief.Africa

Where it sits in ASER’s programme

ASER sorts villages by distance and size. Those within 10 km of a medium-voltage line get grid extension. Beyond that, villages of more than 100 households get a solar plant with a low-voltage network. Smaller villages get kits, as at Gandon. Senegal’s access rate was 86.2% in 2024.

What it means

For a financier, the number to hold on to is 396bn FCFA, not 998bn. Pledges gathered at a round table are statements of intent whose terms are still being settled, and 817bn of the total came from private companies rather than development finance institutions. That is a pipeline, not a funded programme, and the gap between the two figures is where the next two years of negotiation will go. What is already built matters more than the headline. Comasel has held its concessions since 2008 on 25-year terms, bills at Senelec’s regulated tariff, and runs a mini-grid fleet the regulator has already reviewed site by site, down to caretaker wages and the diesel burned when the sun fails. That is an operating track record, not a pitch. For anyone pricing the mini-grid tier as ASER scales it, the question is whether new sites are awarded inside those concessions or tendered alongside them, because the incumbent has 166 reference plants and a tariff file the regulator has already been through.

Sources: Ndarinfo, 23 October 2026, Senego, 23 October 2026, CRSE, second public consultation on Comasel Louga’s tariff conditions