Africa’s energy future at a crossroads
When it comes to building Africa’s energy future, the decisions facing the continent’s leaders today are of historic significance. More than anything else, energy systems are the very fabric of business and society. Countries in Africa want to achieve their goal of building huge amounts of new power generation capacity to anticipate surges in energy demand and put the continent on a path of growth and development.
Africa knows or she must go. The big question is, comment. And more precisely: what is the most economical energy mix that can be built to provide all the new electrical capacity needed? Wind, solar, gas turbines, coal, gas engines… many options are available, but there is only one optimal energy mix for each country.
Over the past decade, engineers and analysts from Wärtsilä drew on their extensive experience in the energy sector in Africa to answer these questions, country by country. We have thus mobilized state-of-the-art, technologically unbiased modeling techniques, and taken into account all local technical constraints, all available technologies and all natural resources specific to each country. Several energy mix scenarios were developed and compared. We executed the models rigorously and the numbers spoke. They reveal considerable cost differences between the different possible energy strategies.
Billions of dollars are at stake
When it comes to choosing energy technologies, keeping an open, open mind is essential. Technologies that may be effective in Europe given its existing infrastructure, population density or natural resources, may be inadequate for others. Each country, each region must find its optimal way of building its energy system. Many African countries, however, have one important commonality: perhaps more than anywhere else, the models indicate that the best way to build the most cost-effective energy system there is to maximize the use of renewable energy.
One fact must be established once and for all: the cost of renewable energy equipment has been falling very rapidly in recent years, and when such equipment runs on Africa’s enormous solar and wind resources, one gets a cost per KW/ h product that beats all other power generation technologies hands down. Add to this the fact that most of the continent’s power grids are relatively underdeveloped, favoring renewable energy over traditional power generation such as coal-fired or gas-turbine power plants becomes a no-brainer.
Although relatively ambitious renewable energy targets have been set by governments across the continent, they do not always go far enough. Contrary to what some industrialists and political leaders may believe, maximizing the amount of renewable energy that can be brought into the system is by far the cheapest strategy available, while ensuring a stable and reliable grid.
In Africa, renewable energy must become the new basic operating electricity. Yes, renewables are intermittent, but combining them with flexible power generation capacities will ensure grid stability and save billions of dollars.
The intermittency of renewable energies: a completely manageable problem
It would be wrong to consider the intermittency of renewable energies as an obstacle. This is not the case, provided they are combined with very flexible forms of electricity generation such as power stations with gas engines.
To maintain a balanced system, flexible reserve and peak power must be available to increase generation at the same rate as wind or solar generation fluctuates, but also to meet fluctuating power demand during the day. . Systems must be able to respond to huge daily variations within seconds or minutes.
Flexible Power Plants are the only reserve generation source designed for this. They will keep the system secure, while allowing the grid to accommodate huge amounts of cheap renewable energy. For Senegal, to take just one example, studies reveal a difference of $480 million in total system cost over the next 15 years between a system incorporating a lot of renewables combined with flexible gas engines , and a system built around inflexible thermal generation and minimal renewables.
Renewables and flexible gas: the two pillars of a winning energy strategy
Renewables and flexible gas are the two pillars of a winning energy strategy for Africa. Similar studies conducted on other African countries indicate that this energy mix strategy will deliver efficiency gains worth billions of dollars continent-wide over the coming decades.
Highly ambitious renewable energy targets in Africa are not only achievable, but they are also the most robust and least expensive strategy for achieving successful electrification of the continent. Making smart strategic decisions will lead to more resilient power systems and deliver vastly greater overall system efficiency.
Tribune by Kenneth Engblom Vice President, Wärtsilä Energy, Europe & Africa
