Abstract
West African countries’ energy and climate policies show a pronounced focus on decarbonising power supply through renewable electricity (RE) generation. In particular, most West African states explicitly focus on hybrid mixes of variable renewable power sources—solar, wind and hydropower—in their targets for the electricity sector. Hydropower, the main current RE resource in West Africa, is strongly sensitive to monsoon rainfall variability, which has led to power crises in the past. Therefore, solar and wind power could play a stronger role in the future as countries move to power systems with high shares of RE. Considering the policy focus on diversified RE portfolios, there is a strong need to provide climate services for assessing how these resources could function together in a power mix. In this study, climate data from the state-of-the-art ERA5 reanalysis is used to assess the synergies of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power potential in West Africa at hourly resolution. A new metric, the stability coefficient Cstab, is developed to quantify the synergies of solar PV and wind power for achieving a balanced power output and limiting storage needs. Using this metric, it is demonstrated that there is potential for exploiting hybrid solar/wind power in a larger area of West Africa, covering more important centers of population and closer to existing grid structures, than would be suggested by average maps of solar and wind resource availability or capacity factor for the region. The results of this study highlight why multi-scale temporal synergies of power mixes should be considered in RE system planning from the start.
Highlights
Electricity demand in West Africa (WA) may increase fivefold by 2030 compared to 2013 [1]
Climate data from the state-of-the-art ERA5 reanalysis is used to assess the synergies of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power potential in West Africa at hourly resolution
The wind turbine capacity factors (CFs) is modeled following [52] as function of hub-height wind speed V, based on Vestas V126-3.3 turbines with 117 m hub-height and 3.3 MW rated power, the type currently used for one of WA’s largest wind power projects, in Taïba Ndiaye, Senegal [53]. (See supplementary material A for details.) The state-of-the-art European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5 reanalysis is used to obtain G, T and V at 31 km spatial and hourly temporal resolution
Summary
Electricity demand in West Africa (WA) may increase fivefold by 2030 compared to 2013 [1] To meet this rising demand while contributing to the objectives of the Paris Agreement [2], most WA countries’ energy policy targets envision a mix of renewable electricity (RE) sources in the future—typically solar, wind and hydropower. The region-wide forecast in the ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) Renewable Energy Policy (EREP) foresees strong growth in solar, wind and hydropower capacity up to 2030 [17]. These power sources are all weather- and climatedependent; if they are to be part of future power systems, their potential synergies must be estimated such that they can be optimally combined [18]. Most RE generation in WA is hydropower; for some countries it is even the main power source [20]
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