Côte d'Ivoire has officially commissioned the Biovéa biomass plant, with a capacity of 46 MW, at Ayébo, near Aboisso, on 5 November 2026. The Ministry of Energy confirmed this step in a report published the following day.
The installation represents an investment of more than FCFA 150 billion. The ministry announces annual production of close to 336 GWh for the national grid. This volume is an operational forecast, not a statement of electricity already produced.
A concession launched in 2019
The commissioning gives concrete form to a partnership launched several years earlier. On 9 December 2019, EDF, Meridiam and Biokala, a subsidiary of the SIFCA group, had announced the signing with the Ivorian government of a concession covering the design, financing, construction and operation of the plant for 25 years.
The timetable presented at that signing envisaged the plant entering service in mid-2023. The current announcement therefore marks the completion of a project whose initial deadlines had fallen earlier. The contractual framework provides that at the end of the concession, the facility will become the property of the Ivorian state.
Collection organised around palm plantations
The fuel gives the project its agricultural dimension. In its technical presentation, Biovéa explains that the plant is to use in particular the petioles and the lower parts of leaves cut during palm tree maintenance and harvesting. Supply therefore relies on residues from oil palm operations, with participation from village and industrial plantations.
The collection basin described by the operator extends within a radius of 60 kilometres around the plant, notably around the Ehania and Toumanguié oil mills. Its plan also provides for keeping certain materials in the plantations to maintain soils. At the inauguration, the government called for fair and transparent remuneration of producers, a concrete issue for this supply chain, which is intended to supply electricity production on a sustained basis.