Finding Engineering Tenders in Africa’s Energy Sector

The Challenge of Identifying Engineering Tenders in Africa’s Energy Market

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Africa’s energy sector is booming. Across the continent, governments, utilities, and international partners are investing billions of dollars to expand electricity access, strengthen transmission networks, and accelerate the transition toward renewables. Yet, despite this momentum, one persistent challenge continues to frustrate engineering and consulting firms: finding and tracking energy public tenders.

While public procurement drives most infrastructure projects in Africa, the process of discovering opportunities remains fragmented, complex, and opaque. Unlike Europe, where a large majority of public tenders are centralized on a single platform  (TED Europe), Africa’s tender landscape is spread across more than 50 national and local portals, hundreds of utility websites, and dozens of international funding institutions.

For engineering companies working in energy — whether in power generation, grid expansion, renewable integration, or electrification — this lack of visibility can make difficult their business strategy.

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Opportunities & Market Potential for Energy Engineering Tenders in Africa

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The African energy market is expanding rapidly. Projects range from major cross-border interconnections to decentralized solar systems and battery storage programs. Just a few recent examples of energy tenders from utilities illustrate the diversity and scale of opportunities:

• Côte d’Ivoire Énergies (CI-Énergies) has launched multiple international calls for engineering consultants, including the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Program – Eastern Backbone, financed through German cooperation (KfW). This project involves prequalification for engineering firms to support the owner’s engineering services across two major phases.
  
  
• In the same country, the Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Energy issued a tender for an engineering consultant to supervise and control reinforcement works on HTA/BT distribution networks in 162 localities. The scope covers everything from network strengthening and telecontrol to the creation of new control centers — a massive undertaking for any firm with regional ambitions.
  
  
• Further south, Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) continues to issue numerous requests for expressions of interest (EOIs) under donor-financed projects. The Mozambique Energy for All Project (MEFA) and the Power Efficiency and Reliability Improvement Project (PERIP) are two examples. Recent tenders include consulting services for the design and supervision of the Temane Thermal Power Plant expansion, and studies for battery energy storage systems (BESS) across 10 sites.
  
  
• In Senegal, Senelec has published several international calls for consulting services related to the reinforcement of high-voltage lines, the construction of regional control centers, and renewable energy integration. For example, one notice seeks consultants for feasibility studies of two 50 MW solar power plants with 30 MW/90 MWh storage systems in Thiès and Touba. Another calls for strategic studies on integrating renewables into the national energy mix — a critical task as Senegal pushes toward its 2030 energy goals.
  
  
• Meanwhile, the West African Power Pool (WAPP),  a regional organization promoting electricity exchange between member states, regularly issues calls for feasibility studies and environmental and social assessments for high-voltage interconnection projects. These include the Sahel Backbone Interconnection Project and the Côte d’Ivoire–Ghana Transmission Reinforcement Project, both aimed at improving cross-border grid stability.
  
  

Each of these tenders represents a high-value opportunity for engineering consultants, energy specialists, and project management firms. Yet identifying them in time remains a significant obstacle.

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Why Energy Tenders in Africa Are Hard to Find: Fragmented Procurement Systems

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The first challenge lies in fragmentation. There is no centralized platform in Africa where all public tenders are published. Each country — and often each public agency — manages its own portal, with different publication schedules, registration rules, and formats.

For instance, CI-Énergies in Côte d’Ivoire posts tenders on its corporate website, while ministries publish on government procurement portals. Senelec uses its own platform for procurement, but donor-funded projects often redirect bidders to the African Development Bank’s portal or to the UNDP procurement site. In Mozambique, Electricidade de Moçambique lists opportunities both on its own site and through AfDB or World Bank systems.

This means that a company wanting to operate across five or ten African countries may need to check hundreds of websites daily to find public tenders, many of which are only partially updated or publish documents as non-searchable PDFs.

To make things worse, some tenders appear only briefly online before closing. Others are published in local newspapers or distributed through mailing lists of donor agencies. The result is an information maze where missing a single update can mean losing a contract worth millions.

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Donor-Funded Energy Projects & Tender Platforms in Africa

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Another layer of complexity comes from international financial institutions (IFIs). Many large-scale energy projects in Africa are financed through entities like the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), French Development Agency (AFD), KfW, JICA, or the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Each of these IFIs operates its own procurement portal — with separate rules, templates, timelines, and documentation standards. Some, like the World Bank’s Procurement Notices Portal, are comprehensive but not always easy to search by sector or geography. Others, like AFD’s or JICA’s, focus on specific countries or programs.

As a result, monitoring donor-financed tenders across Africa requires both technical expertise and constant vigilance. For instance, engineering firms bidding on projects like:

• The JICA-financed Taabo–Kossou–Bouaké Transmission Reinforcement Project in Côte d’Ivoire,
  
  
• The KfW-backed Renewable Energy Program – Eastern Backbone,
  
  
• The AfDB-financed Battery Storage Feasibility Studies in Mozambique, or
  
  
• The World Bank-supported Regional Interconnection of the Sahel Backbone,
  
  

must navigate multiple publication systems just to find the relevant information — let alone prepare and submit a compliant proposal.

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Challenges Engineering Firms Face When Tracking Energy Tenders in Africa

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Behind these structural challenges lies a practical reality: time and resources. Engineering firms in Africa often maintain dedicated tender teams whose sole job is to scan, download, and sort tender documents from hundreds of websites.

But even with trained staff, the manual process is overwhelming. Opportunities can appear under different categories, languages (English, French, Portuguese), or even spellings of project names. Files are often large, poorly indexed PDFs without metadata, making automated keyword detection difficult.

As a manager of IST  company explains : “‍We operate in more than 10 African countries and looking for opportunities can be very time-consuming and complex because of the huge number of different websites and platforms. We need daily updates from hundreds of sources, including public companies, Transmission System Operators (TSOs), and Distribution System Operators (DSOs)”.(see the full interview)

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This fragmentation not only slows down business development but also creates inequality in access to opportunities. Local SMEs without the capacity to monitor multiple sources may never even see international tenders — even those designed to support local participation.

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How to Track Energy Tenders in Africa Efficiently (Platforms & Tools)

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Given this context, aggregated tender platforms have become essential for companies in Africa’s energy and engineering sectors. These digital solutions collect, clean, and centralize procurement data from hundreds of official sources — including government portals, utilities, municipalities, and IFIs — and make them accessible through a single, searchable interface.

By leveraging automation, artificial intelligence, and data structuring, these platforms transform raw, scattered information from energy tenders  into actionable intelligence. Instead of spending hours searching, companies receive automatic alerts tailored to their markets, sectors, and geographies.

For example, a consulting firm specializing in transmission and grid studies could receive daily notifications about:

• Feasibility studies for 225 kV interconnections under WAPP,
  
  
• Owner’s Engineer contracts for new power plants in Côte d’Ivoire,
  
  
• Renewable integration studies financed by the World Bank in Senegal, or
  
  
• Battery storage design and supervision assignments in Mozambique.
  
  

This not only saves time but also levels the playing field by giving companies — local and international — the same visibility into the market.

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The Future of Energy Procurement in Africa

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The ultimate goal is to bring transparency, efficiency, and accessibility to public procurement in Africa in the energy sector. For a continent with such immense energy potential, having clear and open access to engineering tenders is critical for attracting qualified expertise and ensuring high-quality project delivery.

Until governments and regional organizations establish unified procurement systems, digital aggregation and intelligence platforms for public tenders remain the most effective solution. They enable companies to stay ahead of the market, identify the right Try our opportunities, and contribute to Africa’s energy transformation.

Because in today’s dynamic African energy sector, the real challenge is not the lack of opportunities — it’s finding them in time.

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