West African Power Pool Research Articles

Are West Africa's policy, planning, and regulatory frameworks missing the harmonization piece of the power pooling-renewable energy puzzle?

Sound policy, planning and quality regulation are cornerstones to co-creating national markets conducive to the implementation of an efficient regional electricity market. This study examines the policy, planning and regulatory substance and processes in the West African Power Pool, focusing on four countries, namely Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Mali. Through its specialized institutions, the region seeks to leverage shared resources and complementarities to scale up sustainable electricity generation and enhance cross-border electricity trade. The study, however, reveals half-hearted renewable energy (RE) policies, weak RE investment planning and inconsistent regulation on the one hand, and on the other hand, a lack of harmonization of regulatory frameworks which are often misaligned with the regional vision. This translates into missed opportunities to attract the necessary investments in sustainable power infrastructure, particularly from the private sector, and to mutually develop a regional market capable of tackling the long-standing challenge of access to reliable and affordable electricity amid the climate crisis. This can be reversed if countries are fully committed and duly equipped to improve their policies and planning processes, and adjust and harmonize their regulatory frameworks under the guidance, support, and leadership of the regional entities.

Long Term Forecasting of Peak Demand and Annual Electricity Consumption of the West African Power Pool Interconnected Network by 2032

The uneven distribution of primary sources of electric power generation in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) compelled the heads of states to create the West African Power Pool (WAPP). The vision of this system is to set up a common electrical energy market to satisfy the balance between supply and demand at an affordable price using the interconnected network. Forecasting maximum power demand and energy consumption is essential for planning and the coordination of new power plant and transmission lines building. This work consists of predicting maximum power demand and total energy that must transit through the WAPP interconnected network by the year 2032. We compare the performances of three time series models namely the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Fb Facebook Prophet. Electric power and energy data used for training the systems comes from the WAPP authorties. The results show that, for monthly peaks, the Facebook (Fb) Prophet model is the best, with a MAPE (mean absolute error percentage) of 3.1% and a low RMSE (root mean square error) of 1.225 GW. For energy prediction, ARIMA performances are the best compared to others with (RMSE 1.20 TWh, MAPE 1.00%). Thus, the forecast for total annual energy consumption and annual peak demand will be, respectively, 96.85TWh and 13.6 GW in 2032.

The Inaction in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Policy and Legal Issues

This article seeks to examine as to how relevant environmental policy and legal principles deal with adaptation and mitigation challenges posed by climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa. It reviews and analyzes relevant provisions and processes of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement as well as other relevant principles such as common but differentiated responsibility and respective capability (CBDRRC) and binding emission reduction targets. The Sub-Saharan Africa’s attempts to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change are reviewed along with the challenges in the region including the urgent need for climate financing. It concludes by urging the creation of a separate department of climate change by the Sub-Saharan African States, the implementation of environmental liability insurance, the revitalization of the West African power pool project, and the creation of a robust financial mechanism under the Paris Agreement for adaptation and mitigation policies in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

International Law and Regional Electricity Infrastructure: The West African Power Pool

In nearly all regions, politico-legal projects for regional organization and integration often prioritize infrastructure construction and maintenance. In West Africa, the development of a regional organization by the post-colonial independent states, in particular the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) formed in 1975, has enabled states to allocate certain powers to formal and informal regional political institutions with the aim of building state effectiveness and capacity and hence increasing public support and popular legitimacy. In this Essay, I argue that regional organizations serve as governance structures whose infrastructural and institutional mechanisms contextually address the needs of states and their citizens. This account particularly applies to West African electricity arrangements overseen through an unusual ECOWAS-linked regional infrastructural organization, the West African Power Pool (WAPP). The case of WAPP demonstrates how the energy infrastructure shapes and modifies regional institutional rules and practices.

Decarbonisation Strategy for Renewable Energy Integration for Electrification of West African Nations: A Bottom-Up EnergyPLAN Modelling of West African Power Pool Targets

Limited access to electricity and endemic power shortages are huge problems in West African countries, as the lack of sufficient power impedes the socio-economic development in the region. Improving access to and reliability of electricity in West Africa will require close cooperation among neighboring countries, and this was one of the aims for the creation of the West African power pool (WAPP). In this study, a sustainable and economically viable pathway to achieve 100% electricity access and 48% renewable energy sources share in the region by the year 2030 set by WAPP was presented by considering environmental, geographical, technical and economic factors. The technologies of both renewable and non-renewable sources are considered in the model development. Simulation analysis was carried out on individual countries within the region and also as a unified synchronous electricity grid network. The most feasible results were discussed in terms of the initial investment cost, total annual cost, electricity production capacities, carbon emissions and renewable energy sources shared using EnergyPLAN computer software. The integration of natural gas (42,000 MW) with the three RES technologies with the following capacities, wind (13,000 MW), PV (13,000 MW) and hydro (29,000 MW), was shown to be the most feasible, suitable and reliable case scenario for meeting the lofty set target as a unified synchronous grid. This will reduce carbon emissions by almost 50%, from 150 to 77.8 Mt per year, and incur a total investment cost and a total annual cost of USD 250.37 billion and USD 14.71 billion, respectively.

Load Flow Study of Togo and Benin Transmission Power Network by the Newton-Raphson Method

Within the framework of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries power networks interconnection project carried by the West African Power Pool (WAPP), operating guidelines have been defined by WAPP and ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA) to ensure efficient operation of the interconnected network. Each operator is obliged to comply with these directives to guarantee the stability and reliability of energy supply to ECOWAS countries. The purpose of this paper is to carry out the study of the power flow on the existing Togo and Benin power transmission network and to propose solutions for compliance with the requirements relating to the voltage level required on the interconnection lines or at connection points with neighboring power network operators. The dynamic stability of generators will also be studied to assess the behavior of the network during major disturbances. CEB (Communauté Electrique du Bénin in french) is the power transmission network operator of the Republic of Togo and the Republic of Benin. After the inventory of CEB transmission and production infrastructure and the consumption report, the model of CEB power network is produced as well as the single-line diagram. The power flow calculation is performed with the Newton-Raphson algorithm and the node voltages were calculated using the Cyme software. From the voltage values obtained at the various nodes and depending on the behavior of each generator, solutions are proposed to improve the voltage plan of the power network in accordance with the recommendations of the Regulatory Authority.

Determinants of the Access to Electricity: The Case of West African Power Pool Countries

The West-African electricity market remains relatively undeveloped with a low access rate. Indeed, there is a rather paradoxical context between on the one side, the availability of primary energy resources, and on the other side, its affordability and its reliability. This paper aimed at 1) analyzing the effect of economic and special planning variables as well as institutional infrastructures on the access rate; and 2) understanding how well the supra-national cooperation can contribute to improve the availability of electricity for population. For this purpose, this article proposes a panel analysis, supported by the Hsiao test, considering 14 West African countries, members of the West African Power Pool. The Hsiao test approach aimed to know if the panel structure can be accepted, and whether it should rely on a pooled or individual effect. Data used range from 2002 to 2016 and are provided by the Worldwide Governance Indicators and the World Development Indicators. Based on the Hsiao test confirming the pooled approach, the findings establish the importance of the income per capita, the efficiency of institutional framework (regulation quality and government effectiveness) as well as parameters such as population density and urban population rate. Accordingly, recommendation for positive outlook can be envisaged by progresses in economic matters for countries, the regional or supra-regional approach of markets that propose an advantage of gathering strengths, minimizing investment risks for a scale effect and pooling infrastructures.

Quantifying the integration of renewable energy sources in West Africa's interconnected electricity network

The West African Power Pool (WAPP) aims to provide access to affordable electricity to all countries in the region by installing electricity interconnections between countries and creating an integrated electricity market. In this study, we develop a multi-regional economic dispatch model of the West African power system, and quantify the impact of increasing cross-border electricity trading and renewable energy sources on: electricity generation cost, carbon emission, electricity supply and rapidly growing demand. Our results indicate that increasing cross-border electricity trading significantly reduces unserved electricity demand that comes from load shedding in the region. However, in the 2030 scenario where only existing and currently planned generation plants are operational, increased cross-border electricity trading increases electricity generation from heavy fuel and diesel power plants by 16% and 8% respectively. Consequently, this results in an increase in total electricity generation cost and carbon emission in the region. In two scenarios where all fourteen countries in the region are interconnected, average marginal costs in most of the net importing and net exporting countries decrease and increase respectively, due to insufficient generation capacities in several countries. A key finding from our study is that most of the planned interconnections by WAPP could be underutilized in 2030, thus providing an opportunity to integrate unexplored hydro and solar resources in the region.

Regional Integration and Energy Sustainability in Africa: Exploring the Challenges and Prospects for ECOWAS

AbstractThis study explores the extent to which regional integration can be a viable tool in driving energy sustainability in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub‐region of Africa and vice versa. It examines the existing opportunities and the attendant challenges for improved firm productivity in the region through the appraisal of the ECOWAS West African Power Pool. Using three measures of energy sustainability, namely energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability; the study presents the performance of the ECOWAS sub‐region in ensuring regional integration for energy sustainability. The findings from the study reveal, inter alia, that there are prospects and benefits for energy integration for sustainable development in the region. However, even though some progress had been made, there are many challenges. Also, where progress had been made, it is not uniform across the region, though factors such as rising population and political instability could be responsible. It is recommended that the political economy surrounding regional energy integration should be given a priority among member states to ensure that there is positive political will for speedy achievement of set goals. Also, investment in human capital to manage the different projects and maintain the facilities cannot be overemphasized.

Restoring the natural flow regime of a large hydroelectric complex: Costs and considerations

Electricity generated from hydropower is considered a clean energy source because it is both renewable and non-carbon emitting. However, large hydroelectric complexes can generate a wide range of deleterious impacts on downstream ecosystems. The purpose of this article is to describe an approach for estimating the system-wide electricity costs of altering the operation, called reoperation, of a large hydroelectric complex for the purpose of partially restoring natural downstream ecosystems. We study the effect of reoperating the Akosombo hydroelectricity complex in Ghana because the Akosombo plays a critical role in regional electricity production and the construction of the Akosombo Dam substantially altered the natural flow of the Volta River. We do this by comparing the observed operations for a one-year period spanning 2004–2005 with reoperation scenarios that have the goal of making the dam outflow pattern closer to the inflow pattern. We quantify the impact of these reoperation strategies on regional electricity costs using a calibrated model of productivity at the Akosombo Dam and a model of regional electricity generation and trade. We find that if annual generation stays essentially the same with increased wet season generation offsetting decreased dry season generation, the increase in annual costs to the West African Power Pool is about $20 million. If dam operation is altered to be as close to run of river as possible, annual generation decreases due to water spillage, and system-wide costs increase $155 million.

Convergence in Electricity Consumption among Selected West African Countries

This study tests the convergence in electricity consumption per capita among selected West African countries participating in the integration of their electricity market under the West African Power Pool (WAPP) initiative over the time period of 1971-2014. This study is significant as it helps clarify a concern within the area of energy economics; that is, whether cross-sectional differences in electricity-related measures across countries shrink over time. An answer to this would further help understand how electricity intensity tends to increase in countries that have relatively low electricity intensity for their low-income level. To this end, the study applies panel unit root tests. The results indicate that the per capita electricity consumption is not converging for the selected countries. The findings suggest that the goals of the WAPP initiative have not improved electrification access. Therefore, policymakers need to reassess the programme in order to ensure that its objectives are achieved.

Dynamic panel modelling of electricity consumption and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

AbstractThe effect of electricity consumption on economic growth of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Member Countries has been examined during the period 2007–2016. The study applied both static and dynamic panel models in the form of Fixed‐Effect, Random‐Effect, Difference GMM and System GMM. The results revealed that electricity consumption has a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth for both static and dynamic panel models. Capital has also been found to have impacted positively and significantly on economic growth in both models. Similarly, labour showed a positive and significant impact on economic growth system GMM model only. Since the study supports electricity consumption led‐growth hypothesis, therefore, it is recommended that ECOWAS countries should explore other alternative sources of electricity generation in order to ensure sufficient and reliable supply of electricity. This can be achieved at individual country level by utilising the potentials of renewable endowments such as biomass, biofuels and solar energy available to each country. Equally, the regional efforts to establish West African Power Pool (WAPP) and West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) in order to increase the supply as well as grid reliability should be strengthened.

Sustainable development of the West African Power Pool: Increasing solar energy integration and regional electricity trade

The West African region is currently experiencing the challenge of meeting rapidly the growing electricity demand which has played a critical role in the low economic development rate of the region. To tackle these challenges, the West African Power Pool was established to build regional power plants and interconnected transmission infrastructures between the countries. In this study, we develop a multi-region economic dispatch model with hourly simulations to evaluate the impact of increased integration of solar PV on the interconnected West Africa electricity network. Our results show the high integration of solar PV plants reduces the supply-demand gap and load shedding in the region. All countries in the region potentially benefit from avoided generation cost and decrease in unserved electricity demand. Our study presents a sustainable strategy to diversify from hydro and gas regional projects and invest in solar PV in order to improve electricity supply and reduce the high electricity prices in the region.

Energy Use: Electricity System in West Africa and Climate Change Impact

This article investigates a low carbon pathway, the theoretical frame for understanding the trade-offs between economic development and climate change. An already developed model - Electricity Planning-Low Carbon Development (EP-LCD) - was adapted and modified to examine the nonlinear relationship between generation adequacy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction for better targeted strategic regional intervention on climate change. Two broad scenarios - Base and LCD Option - were tested for the West African Power Pool (WAPP). The cost impact of increasing generation capacity in the LCD Option was estimated at US$1.54 trillion over a 50 year period. Achieving the goal of low carbon pathway would be largely influenced by government decision. Four strategies, in line with the Nationally Determined Contribution in Paris Agreement, were recommended. These are: a) enforced improved efficient electricity generation through increased energy efficiency that should result in increased capacity factor; b) decreased energy intensity of economic activities to result in reduced emission factor in existing plants; c) attract new investment through low tax or tax exemption to reduce cost of constructing power plants for the benefit of base-load plants; and d) subsidized cost of low-carbon fuels in the short run to benefit intermediate load plants and allow for the ramping up of low-/no-carbon fuel generation capacity. These are recommended considering the region’s specific economical and political conditions where funds are tremendously difficult to raise. Implementing these recommendations will allow the electric power industry in West Africa to contribute to achieving sustainable development path.

Integrated Power Market in West Africa: An Overview

Lack of access to affordable electricity is a major detriment to the development of the resource-rich West African region. Accelerating development in this region will require massive expansion of access to electricity. The purpose of this paper is to more clearly identify the status of current efforts to improve the energy situation. Analysis of existing literature shows that an increasingly interesting aspect of solving power problems in the developing word is the design and implementation of competitive electricity markets. In West Africa, the most ambitious plan to reform the Power Sector is the West African Power Pool (WAPP). By conducting a review of current power sector integration projects and approaches to market liberalization in West Africa, this paper provides a robust basis for future research on paths for energy security in the region.

Low-carbon development strategy for the West African electricity system: preliminary assessment using System dynamics approach

BackgroundPolicy makers seek to understand the trade-offs needed between economic growth and climate change. This provides the context to explore low-carbon development (LCD) pathways for the West African electricity system.MethodsThe study relied on both primary and secondary sources to elicit required information. These data were elicited from relevant authorities in the West African electricity system, namely, West African Power Pool and ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority. The objectives were to evaluate the planning processes in the West African Power Pool electricity system vis-a-vis low-carbon development strategy (LCDS), develop a System dynamics (SD) model, and assess the relevance of the developed model to examine the nonlinear relationship between generation adequacy and greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction. The SD model examined the tension between providing adequate supply capacity against reducing emission from the generation technologies in the West Africa electricity system. This model arranged the complexities in the system and established the basic interconnecting structure to conduct the analysis. High leverage points were identified.ResultsFour high leverage points were identified: capacity factor (CF), emission factor (EF), time to adjust capacity, and expectation formation. CF and EF improvement increased efficiency in the system. The expectation formation periods were determined at 7.5 years for the base case scenario and 7 years for the low-carbon development option scenario. Time to adjust capacity was located at 21 and 20 years respectively; deduced from the average time, it will take to construct a combined cycle gas power plant (3 years) and an allowance of 2 years for delays and its decommissioning time. Between 2011 and 2012, in LCD option scenario, emission of GHG to the atmosphere dropped as generation did but began a steady rise for the simulation period to a value of 6.154 billion tCO2 in 2060.ConclusionsElectricity Planning-Low-Carbon Development (EP-LCD) model—with three modules, was developed for assessing WAPP in low carbon economy. High leverage points identified in the model simulation situate three policy options for overcoming poverty and mitigation targets as regards resource mix, investment cost recovery, and technical factors to reduce system’s environmental footprint.

The promotion of regional integration of electricity markets: Lessons for developing countries

This paper focuses on how to promote regional cooperation in electricity. We begin by discussing the theory of international trade cooperation in electricity, with a view to discussing what preconditions might be important in facilitating wide area trading across national borders.We then develop lessons based on the comparison of four case studies. These include three regional developing country power pools – the Southern African Power pool (SAPP), West African Power pool (WAPP) and the Central American Power Market (MER). We contrast these with Northern Europe's Nord Pool. These cases highlight both the potential and difficulty of having cross-jurisdictional power pools.In the light of the theory and evidence we present, we draw key lessons in the areas of: preconditions for trading; necessary institutional arrangements; practicalities of timetabling; reasons to be hopeful about future prospects.

A review of energy planning practices of members of the Economic Community of West African States

The aim of this study is to provide a systematic review of the energy planning (EP) activities being conducted in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Of particular interest is the establishment of an understanding of current practices. A matrix of evaluation of literature was developed and applied, to find out who is active in EP, the purposes of EP, how energy demand is considered, the scope of the EP activity, and the specificity of indicators used in the ECOWAS region. Energy planning documents were discovered for ten ECOWAS members and the West African Power Pool (WAPP). Electrical systems planning documents were the most common. A set of common fundamental objectives for the EP activities was found. Disconnections were found between EP Objectives and the Attributes used in the EP activities. Monitoring and verification activities as part of the plans were absent from all of the EP documents. While few similarities were found through the comparison of indicators/attributes used in the EP documents of ECOWAS and those used in more developed countries, in contrast the analysis found similarity between the EP objectives set by the region and those of developed countries.

Electricity sector integration in West Africa

Regional and global integration initiatives push for more electricity sector integration everywhere in the world, including West Africa. The creation of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) in 2000 and important investments under this new structure in 2006 are concrete actions that will result in a more integrated West African electricity sector. But will this integrated sector be more functional than the previous ones? Will the identified electricity sector problems be solved with the new power pool? This paper analyzes how power sector integration is presented by international institutions (the UN Economic Commission for Africa, World Energy Council and World Bank) and identifies three problematic issues with the current integration approach: lack of African ownership, unclear and conflicting reform objectives and uncertainty of integration outcomes.