Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
Research Article

Strategic siting and regional grid interconnections key to low-carbon futures in African countries

View ORCID ProfileGrace C. Wu, Ranjit Deshmukh, Kudakwashe Ndhlukula, Tijana Radojicic, Jessica Reilly-Moman, Amol Phadke, Daniel M. Kammen, and Duncan S. Callaway
  1. aEnergy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  2. bInternational Energy Studies Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  3. cSouthern Africa Development Community (SADC) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia;
  4. dCountry Support and Partnerships, International Renewable Energy Agency, Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

See allHide authors and affiliations

PNAS first published March 27, 2017; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611845114
Grace C. Wu
aEnergy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
bInternational Energy Studies Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Grace C. Wu
  • For correspondence: grace.cc.wu@berkeley.edu rdeshmukh@lbl.gov
Ranjit Deshmukh
aEnergy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
bInternational Energy Studies Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: grace.cc.wu@berkeley.edu rdeshmukh@lbl.gov
Kudakwashe Ndhlukula
cSouthern Africa Development Community (SADC) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Tijana Radojicic
dCountry Support and Partnerships, International Renewable Energy Agency, Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jessica Reilly-Moman
aEnergy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
bInternational Energy Studies Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Amol Phadke
bInternational Energy Studies Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Daniel M. Kammen
aEnergy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Duncan S. Callaway
aEnergy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  1. Edited by M. Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and approved February 23, 2017 (received for review July 18, 2016)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Significance

This study identifies, characterizes, and values wind and solar electricity resources for 21 countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa Power Pools. We find that many countries possess potential many times their projected demand. However, because the most competitive wind and solar resources are spatially uneven, international transmission could allow the region as a whole to benefit from “no-regrets” or low-cost, low-impact, and highly accessible resources. International energy trade also lowers system costs by reducing the need for conventional power plants and allows lower impact, more accessible renewable energy sites to be cost competitive. Regional interconnections planned around strategic siting opportunities are crucial for realizing no-regrets wind and solar energy development that can be competitive with conventional generation in African countries.

Abstract

Recent forecasts suggest that African countries must triple their current electricity generation by 2030. Our multicriteria assessment of wind and solar potential for large regions of Africa shows how economically competitive and low-environmental–impact renewable resources can significantly contribute to meeting this demand. We created the Multicriteria Analysis for Planning Renewable Energy (MapRE) framework to map and characterize solar and wind energy zones in 21 countries in the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and find that potential is several times greater than demand in many countries. Significant fractions of demand can be quickly served with “no-regrets” options—or zones that are low-cost, low-environmental impact, and highly accessible. Because no-regrets options are spatially heterogeneous, international interconnections are necessary to help achieve low-carbon development for the region as a whole, and interconnections that support the best renewable options may differ from those planned for hydropower expansion. Additionally, interconnections and selecting wind sites to match demand reduce the need for SAPP-wide conventional generation capacity by 9.5% in a high-wind scenario, resulting in a 6–20% cost savings, depending on the avoided conventional technology. Strategic selection of low-impact and accessible zones is more cost effective with interconnections compared with solutions without interconnections. Overall results are robust to multiple load growth scenarios. Together, results show that multicriteria site selection and deliberate planning of interconnections may significantly increase the economic and environmental competitiveness of renewable alternatives relative to conventional generation.

  • Africa
  • energy policy
  • interconnections
  • renewable energy
  • siting

Footnotes

  • ↵1G.C.W. and R.D. contributed equally to this work.

  • ↵2To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: grace.cc.wu{at}berkeley.edu or rdeshmukh{at}lbl.gov.
  • Author contributions: G.C.W., R.D., and D.S.C. designed research; G.C.W., R.D., and J.R.- M. performed research; G.C.W., R.D., and D.S.C. contributed analytic tools; G.C.W. and R.D. analyzed data; G.C.W., R.D., K.N., T.R., J.R.-M., A.P., D.M.K., and D.S.C. wrote the paper; and K.N., T.R., and J.R.-M. collected data.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1611845114/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

View Full Text
Next
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Strategic siting and regional grid interconnections key to low-carbon futures in African countries
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Siting and interconnections for low-carbon Africa
Grace C. Wu, Ranjit Deshmukh, Kudakwashe Ndhlukula, Tijana Radojicic, Jessica Reilly-Moman, Amol Phadke, Daniel M. Kammen, Duncan S. Callaway
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2017, 201611845; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1611845114

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Siting and interconnections for low-carbon Africa
Grace C. Wu, Ranjit Deshmukh, Kudakwashe Ndhlukula, Tijana Radojicic, Jessica Reilly-Moman, Amol Phadke, Daniel M. Kammen, Duncan S. Callaway
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2017, 201611845; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1611845114
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 118 (9)
Current Issue

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Results and Discussion
    • Conclusions
    • Materials and Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Setting sun over a sun-baked dirt landscape
Core Concept: Popular integrated assessment climate policy models have key caveats
Better explicating the strengths and shortcomings of these models will help refine projections and improve transparency in the years ahead.
Image credit: Witsawat.S.
Model of the Amazon forest
News Feature: A sea in the Amazon
Did the Caribbean sweep into the western Amazon millions of years ago, shaping the region’s rich biodiversity?
Image credit: Tacio Cordeiro Bicudo (University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil), Victor Sacek (University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil), and Lucy Reading-Ikkanda (artist).
Syrian archaeological site
Journal Club: In Mesopotamia, early cities may have faltered before climate-driven collapse
Settlements 4,200 years ago may have suffered from overpopulation before drought and lower temperatures ultimately made them unsustainable.
Image credit: Andrea Ricci.
Steamboat Geyser eruption.
Eruption of Steamboat Geyser
Mara Reed and Michael Manga explore why Yellowstone's Steamboat Geyser resumed erupting in 2018.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Birds nestling on tree branches
Parent–offspring conflict in songbird fledging
Some songbird parents might improve their own fitness by manipulating their offspring into leaving the nest early, at the cost of fledgling survival, a study finds.
Image credit: Gil Eckrich (photographer).

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Subscribers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates
  • FAQs
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Rights & Permissions
  • About
  • Contact

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490