Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161509 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2016/126
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Regional power pools present a significant and potentially defining opportunity for African power systems to develop domestic energy resources, improve system reliability, and contribute to overall economic development. Hydropower is expected to play a significant role in many regional power pools in Africa. Feasible power transmission highways from Grand Inga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia to other regions on the continent create the possibility of a pan-African electricity grid. However, in the medium and long term, global climate change is expected to cause major variations in Africa's hydrological resources and it is not known how these changes may impact the value of regional power sector integration. This paper presents a model developed to study the value of different levels of regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa and how this value may change in the face of climate change. This work builds on previous studies by incorporating the ability to trade between different regional pools, co-optimisation of generation and transmission, the ability to share reserves, and detailed simulation of the major hydropower basins in Africa. Numerical results of the analysis will be presented in a parallel paper.
Subjects: 
climate change
capacity expansion planning
power pools
Africa
JEL: 
C61
O21
P28
Q40
R58
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-170-3
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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