National infrastructure planning

Lighting up Sierra Leone

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Planning for renewable energy infrastructure and energy access

IndustryRenewable energy
Infrastructure type
  • Centralised and distributed grids
  • Solar power plants
Risk types
  • Demand risk
  • Accessibility risk
  • Climate risk
LocationSierra Leone (country-wide for 21,000 locations)
Users
  • Ministry of Energy Sierra Leone
  • World Bank
  • Other donors
  • Infrastructure developers
VIDA value
  • Users (government, bank, developers) gain a detailed understanding of demand risk, accessibility risk, and other risks
  • Users work with these datasets and can add new geospatial and on-ground data
  • Different stakeholders can collaborate in the software
  • Different types of infrastructure (energy, healthcare, education) can be planned in an integrated, optimised manner
ImpactExpediting renewable energy access for 6 million people

Just 25% of the total population in Sierra Leone had access to electricity as of 2021. Limited energy access hinders economic development, blocks access to essential services and reduces overall quality of life. The government set an ambitious policy target to increase access to electricity to 92% of its population by 2030.

VIDA has set up and runs a national electrification platform for Sierra Leone. This enables the Ministry of Energy to access relevant information on over 21,000 settlements and plan the most appropriate energy infrastructure for each. Supported with regular training from the VIDA team, more than 60 decision-makers from the Government of Sierra Leone, the World Bank, the EU and elsewhere collaborate on the platform to catalyse infrastructure development.

Country-level energy infrastructure overview in VIDA.
Location-level energy infrastructure overview in VIDA.
VIDA training session in Freetown.
“In a very short while, VIDA has helped us with our National Electrification Planning and our collaboration with them has been beneficial to the energy sector, to private investors, independent power producers and the Government of Sierra Leone”. Cyril Grant, Executive Technical Adviser to the Minister of Energy Sierra Leone
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