Visualizing National Electrification Scenarios for Sub-Saharan African Countries

Some 630 million people representing two-thirds of all Africans have no access to electricity, which is identified as a key barrier towards further development. Three main electrification options are considered within our work: grid extensions, mini-grids and solar home systems (SHS). A methodology is applied to all sub-Saharan African countries to identify in high geospatial resolution which electrification option is appropriate taking into account datasets for night light imagery, population distribution and grid infrastructure. Four different scenarios are considered reflecting grid development and electrification constraints due to low population density. The results clearly indicate a dominating role of SHS for achieving a fast electrification of the not supplied people. The share of supplied people by mini-grids is found to be rather low while grid extension serves a large share of the population. The decisive factors for these distinctions are population density and distance to grid. We applied several scenarios and sensitivities to understand the influence of these key parameters. The highest trade-off happens between SHS and grid extension depending on the selected thresholds. Mini-grid deployments remain in the range of 8 to 21%.

[1]  Mark Howells,et al.  The benefits of geospatial planning in energy access – A case study on Ethiopia , 2016 .

[2]  S. Khandker,et al.  Welfare Impacts of Rural Electrification: Evidence from Vietnam , 2009 .

[3]  A. Tatem,et al.  Dynamic population mapping using mobile phone data , 2014, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[4]  Magda Moner-Girona,et al.  Geospatial Analysis of Photovoltaic Mini-Grid System Performance , 2017 .

[5]  Sebastian Groh,et al.  What are we measuring? An empirical analysis of household electricity access metrics in rural Bangladesh , 2016 .

[6]  H. Cruickshank,et al.  The value of cooperatives in rural electrification , 2010 .

[7]  Jörg Peters,et al.  Does Large Scale Infrastructure Investment Alleviate Poverty? Impacts of Rwanda's Electricity Access Roll-Out Program , 2015 .

[8]  Manuel Welsch,et al.  A cost comparison of technology approaches for improving access to electricity services , 2016 .

[9]  Subhes C. Bhattacharyya,et al.  Rural electrification through decentralised off-grid systems in developing countries. , 2013 .

[10]  Ognen Stojanovski,et al.  Rural energy access through solar home systems: Use patterns and opportunities for improvement , 2017 .

[11]  Laia Ferrer-Martí,et al.  Renewable energy projects to electrify rural communities in Cape Verde , 2014 .

[12]  M. Kelly,et al.  Bridging the information gap: A webGIS tool for rural electrification in data-scarce regions , 2016 .

[13]  Nadia S. Ouedraogo.  Energy consumption and human development: Evidence from a panel cointegration and error correction model , 2013 .

[14]  Philipp Blechinger,et al.  Electrification Modelling for Nigeria , 2016 .

[15]  Thomas Huld,et al.  Sustainable energy planning: Leapfrogging the energy poverty gap in Africa , 2013 .

[16]  Nadia S. Ouédraogo,et al.  Energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from the economic community of West African States (ECOWAS) , 2013 .

[17]  M. Gustavsson.  Educational benefits from solar technology—Access to solar electric services and changes in children's study routines, experiences from eastern province Zambia , 2007 .

[18]  Catherine Linard,et al.  Disaggregating Census Data for Population Mapping Using Random Forests with Remotely-Sensed and Ancillary Data , 2015, PloS one.

[19]  D. Palit,et al.  Utilising electricity access for poverty reduction. , 2015 .

[20]  A. Tatem,et al.  High Resolution Population Maps for Low Income Nations: Combining Land Cover and Census in East Africa , 2007, PloS one.

[21]  Getachew Bekele,et al.  Feasibility Study of Small Hydro/PV/Wind Hybrid System for off Grid Rural Electrification in Ethiopia , 2012 .

[22]  T. Huld,et al.  Energy solutions in rural Africa: mapping electrification costs of distributed solar and diesel generation versus grid extension , 2011 .

[23]  V. Salas,et al.  Overview of the off-grid photovoltaic diesel batteries systems with AC loads , 2015 .

[24]  Fredrik Wallin,et al.  Illuminated but not electrified: An assessment of the impact of Solar Home System on rural households in South Africa , 2015 .

[25]  Didier Mayer,et al.  Microhydro-PV-hybrid system: Sizing a small hydro-PV-hybrid system for rural electrification in developing countries , 2009 .

[26]  Catherina Cader,et al.  The Influence of Diesel Fuel Subsidies and Taxes on the Potential for Solar-Powered Hybrid Systems in Africa , 2015 .

[27]  Thomas Barnebeck Andersen,et al.  Power outages and economic growth in Africa , 2013 .

[28]  Valerie M. Thomas,et al.  Can developing countries leapfrog the centralized electrification paradigm , 2016 .

[29]  Manuel Welsch,et al.  A GIS-based approach for electrification planning-A case study on Nigeria , 2015 .

[30]  Rubaba Ali,et al.  Who Benefits Most from Rural Electrification? Evidence in India , 2012 .

[31]  De Roo Arie,et al.  Lighting the World: The first global application of an open source, spatial electrification tool (OnSSET), with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa , 2017 .

[32]  Laia Ferrer-Martí,et al.  Off-grid community electrification projects based on wind and solar energies: A case study in Nicaragua , 2015 .

[33]  Paulina Jaramillo,et al.  Enabling private sector investment in microgrid-based rural electrification in developing countries: A review , 2015 .

[34]  Chaowei Yang,et al.  Geographic Information System , 2009 .

[35]  Cecilia M. Briceno-Garmendia,et al.  Africa - Underpowered : the state of the power sector in Sub-Saharan Africa , 2008 .

[36]  D. Barnes,et al.  Welfare impacts of rural electrification , 2009 .

[37]  Charles Mbohwa,et al.  Replicability and scalability of mini-grid solution to rural electrification programs in sub-Saharan Africa , 2017 .

[38]  P Balachandra,et al.  Grid-connected versus stand-alone energy systems for decentralized power—A review of literature , 2009 .

[39]  Saad Mekhilef,et al.  Techno‐economic analysis of hybrid PV–diesel–battery and PV–wind–diesel–battery power systems for mobile BTS: the way forward for rural development , 2015 .

[40]  Nadia S. Ouédraogo,et al.  Modeling sustainable long-term electricity supply-demand in Africa , 2017 .

[41]  Harald Rohracher.  Die Wechselwirkung technischen und institutionellen Wandels in der Transformation von Energiesystemen , 2007 .

[42]  Stephen P. Mills,et al.  Suomi satellite brings to light a unique frontier of nighttime environmental sensing capabilities , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.